The times in my life when I have felt, truly, alone were when I was stuck in my head with no way to successfully communicate what was going on inside me.
The difficulty of that situation is that when you are in it, you desperately want to connect with someone – anyone – and express yourself, but you can’t, forcing yourself further into your solitude.
The more people would try to help, the more alone I’d be, because they would show how little they knew what was going on with me.
I’m not entirely sure at what point this stopped for me – maybe with age comes wisdom, but a switch was flipped and suddenly I understood that the thread that tied them to me was enough – I wasn’t alone, because there was someone else who shared my secret smile at the grocery store when I picked up the special Mexican Cheese Ruffles. Or the guy always behind me in line who sincerely says “Good Choice” to my Starbucks order. Or the girl who tells me she’s going to study science because of a video I posted on YouTube.
We’re not alone in a sea of faces. We’re alone together with each other.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/When-do-you-feel-or-when-have-you-felt-the-most-alone
Originally Posted On: 2015-02-02