Abyss of Loneliness

When the mind settles the need to reach for something lessens. In the process the abyss of loneliness disappears simply because an “I” story of loneliness isn’t being created…

The abyss of loneliness seems to get wider as one ages, but it doesn’t really. What happens is there are just less distractions so “I” takes more of a hold. The natural process of life seems to be to stay busy trying to figure things out. Regardless of what exactly the figuring out is, it certainly creates a lot of distractions. There are periods in between the busyness where a person has some idle time and probably feels the abyss of loneliness, but it doesn’t usually last very long because the busyness of trying to figure out life returns. This busyness last for most of life, but there does come a time that the natural process of being busy lessens. At this stage many people experience a loneliness that hasn’t been noticed before so it will either be addressed by looking inward or one will get busy again trying to figure out how to fill the abyss.

Eventually the busyness will end for whatever reason, but unfortunately for most people without the busyness the abyss of loneliness rears its ugly head. Many elderly people struggle to fill this abyss because there just isn’t a lot going on. Kids are grown, retirement, house paid off, more time behind you than what’s in front, and the list goes on using distraction after distraction. For me, there were very brief periods of not needing to reach, but these periods were far and few in between. That is until sixteen years ago when the abyss engulfed me. I began sitting and looking inward which allowed me to see the distractions of my “I” needing to attach to a story. As I sat, the mind settled and thus needing to reach for something lessened. In the process the abyss of loneliness disappeared and it was simply because an “I” story of loneliness wasn’t created…