I am alone. At least, I must accept that.
There were times when I had friends, spouses, children. All are gone, having slipped through my hand like sand, leaving in the end only my closed, empty fist.
It seems that others have a circle, containing themselves and others, or at least one other. My circle contains myself alone. Even this writing, in principle “for” someone, is in reality only for myself.
In the end, there is only awareness, the pure light of consciousness that sees and contains whatever is. It implies something, but is itself nothing but a space aching to be filled. Insofar as it can understand itself, it understands that it is nothing but illumination; an empty stage is created, waiting. There is an expectation that a drama, perhaps a comedy, will be performed; but what if there is no performance, just one’s own lonely dance before the audience of oneself?
My search for purpose is in reality the desire for a journey, a story shared with someone, told to someone, thereby implying the presence of another. In the end, the other is only myself.
Sometimes the pain of loneliness is so intense I can barely contain it. Is there a prize for containing sadness? A level of consciousness attained? Is understanding a gift or a curse?
I am alone, left with myself. What difference does it make if I wander here or there? I read my preceding entry with a little embarrassment; the last fantasies of a desperate man. Trying to create something out of nothing, which cannot be done. The realization of nothing is the only fundamental gift, the realization of space, of emptiness, the qua-qua of humanity bleating to itself, a vacuum describing its own vacuity.
I am alone.
So what? The path has taken me here, again and again. All paths lead to alone. I have reached out in desperation for some connection, generally been shunned, perhaps my desperation leading the other to back carefully away. After all, they have something, someone, a connection that precedes and, in the end precludes me.
It is as if, existentially, I have arrived at the party late, after all the assignments have been made. I too want to be loved, but, well, sorry! Full up! Step away please!
I am the extra man, the one left over, watching from the periphery of existence. The one who, when push comes to shove, nobody really needs or wants. Too sensitive and autonomous even to be a burden to others. Too clear-seeing to believe my own mythology, too opaque to be encompassed by another. Someone, I suppose, has to be the extra man, the odd number, the left over. To be loved cannot be everyone’s destiny. Love requires attention, and attention requires time, and time, I understand more and more as I grow older, is a limited commodity.
To want to be more than the awareness of the now; that is my plight, and the plight, I suppose, of extra men everywhere. For, in fact I am duplicated in shacks and condominiums and old-age home everywhere, as the legions of extra-men wait desperately for the hour to come when they can take that first drink. Is it time yet? Now? Now?
To have awareness contain the understanding that one is cared for, a simple warmth of present humanity that offers a focus other than the eternal emptiness of the light; that is the gift that is denied the extra man, who arrives late to the party and is nonetheless granted the right to watch, to see the fullness and complexity that is denied him. The extra man has the right, and the opportunity, to ask himself whether it is worth it to look at the fullness of the other. Or is it better to turn away, to walk away alone, and live silently and alone in the awareness of the light?