The pandemic has left many of us feeling isolated and alone. We may have gotten sick, lost someone close to us, or experienced financial hardship. And to reduce the risk of getting Covid-19, the usual ways that we used to interact with loved ones, friends and co-workers have been shut down or severely limited. The idea of developing new connections almost seems like a foreign concept, as typical venues where we might meet new people – concerts, bars, museums etc. — have been shut down or limited in terms of capacity. Thus, the community that we have now may be very different from what we enjoyed or hoped to enjoy prior to the pandemic.
And while many of us have felt alone before for one reason or another, the pandemic seems to evoke a deeper sense of isolation — an “existential aloneness.” Existential aloneness refers to a sense of feeling empty and that our life is without any meaning. What can often occur is that we start feeling disconnected from and unable to share enjoyable activities with others. And as time goes on, we not only stop connecting with others, but we also start disconnecting from ourselves. We don’t consider doing the things we promised ourselves we would do if we had time. We’re not learning to play guitar, writing a screenplay, committing to perform 1,000 pushups a day or learning another language. If we can’t enjoy our life with others, what’s the point? So life starts to feel empty and without meaning.
Our hope is that once we are vaccinated, we can re-enter the world and re-establish a sense of community. And there are those of who will be able to re-establish a sense of community relatively easily. But many of us are feeling hesitant about starting up where we’ve left off. We feel vulnerable and awkward and not sure how we are ever going to re-enter the social world – but we’re not sure why. We’ve been dreaming of getting back to our normal social routine for a year. Why aren’t we chomping at the bit to get out there?
One reason may be that while feeling alone might be easily remedied by increasing social activity, existential aloneness is not so easily shrugged off. When we are not connected to ourselves, it is much more difficult to connect to others. We aren’t excited to talk about what’s happening in our life, because we feel like our life is empty and meaningless. We’re not as able to engage in light and casual conversation because everything feels so heavy. And we may not feel comfortable explaining to the people in our life how much pain we feel. So we feel “off” and awkward – such that going back into the world and reconnecting or rebuilding a community feels daunting and scary rather than exciting and hopeful. And we have no confidence that we will ever be able to feel that we have a community again. In more severe circumstances, many of us are spinning into a vicious cycle of isolation and depression from which we feel we cannot escape.
However, while it may sound counterintuitive, the key to rebuilding our community is not to force ourselves to “get out there” and start connecting directly with people socially. Rather we first need to tackle the sense of existential aloneness that undermines our sense of who we are and how we relate to others. And paradoxically, the key to combatting existential aloneness is not to spend more time with people. It is to actually embrace being alone – but in a way in which we find meaning and purpose rather than emptiness.
I have been thinking about this concept quite a bit since talking with William Duvall of the band Alice In Chains on The Hardcore Humanism Podcast about is teenage hardcore punk rock band Neon Christ. Duvall had previously found purpose and meaning in the hardcore punk rock community in his hometown of Washington DC. But then Duvall’s family moved to Georgia – where there was no hardcore punk community. He felt completely alone, isolated and desperate. But rather than simply jumping in and befriending people who may not have been a good fit for him, he committed to his passion for playing hardcore punk music. And soon his strength of purpose and enthusiasm for punk rock music spread – he formed a band and galvanized other kids in the area who were also into hardcore punk, and a local scene developed. As time went on, Duvall met bands who came on tour through Georgia and he connected with likeminded people in the hardcore punk rock scene on a national level. Duvall found his community, but it started with his connecting with himself first.
So how can we tackle our existential aloneness and rebuild a supportive community?
First, we must always remember to be our own best friend first. And that means being empathic and understanding about our feelings of existential aloneness. This pandemic has been grueling – just surviving with any semblance of mental, physical and spiritual health is a victory. Snapping our fingers and saying words like “purpose” and “connection” isn’t going to magically make those intense feelings go away. And as we seek to learn how to find purpose while we are alone, we need to accept how difficult being alone might feel as we crave connection.
Second, we can ask ourselves what gives us a feeling of purpose, meaning or connection in our life? What are the things that we love to do, learn about and talk about? These can be as lofty as wanting to start our own business, or band, or wanting to run a marathon. Or maybe we have interests such as cooking, music or art. Even if we think our interests are not “meaningful,” (e.g. we love reality television) – start by figuring out what those things are and spending time doing them. This will give us an opportunity to more directly reconnect with ourselves as a challenge to the emptiness that existential aloneness brings.
Next, we can try to figure out how we can do those activities – not only on our own in our home, but also out in the world. The key here is to try to first engage in those activities on our own before we start including other people. If we like art – start by learning about our favorite art and artists and then by going to museums, galleries or open studios on our own. If we like music – we can think about finding new music we love, and eventually seeing the bands live on our own. Or we can start making our own art and music. Whatever we are interested in doing, we can start doing on our own. This will allow us to get more comfortable with who we are and what gives us meaning, without the pressure of social interaction. A good guideline is to be able to plan and look forward to an entire week – weekend included – with no formal social plans. Once we can do that, we know we can connect with ourselves as we rediscover (or discover) what we find meaningful and purposeful in our lives.
Finally, once we’ve got the alone thing down, we can start to reconnect with others and build a community. One way we may want to start is by sharing what we are doing on our own on social media. This can be a way of “planting a flag” and seeing who might be interested in similar things. When we are ready, we can start reaching out to the people who have been in our lives and start to reconnect. It can often be good to take a bit of a “tour” of the people in our life. Slowly reach out to various people and see who might be interested in talking or getting together. This can help us figure out who is interested in and available to be part of our community. At some point we could transition from sharing what we did after the fact to opening up for others to join in on activities we are planning to do.
So, if we address existential aloneness by looking inward first to pursue and build out our purpose, our lives will feel less empty and more meaningful. And we can then enrich our lives further by building a community of people who support who we are and our purpose in life.
