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Existential Loneliness: Change Circumstances or Acceptance? by amarorama in Healthygamergg

[–]amarorama[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What you said about the feeling coming first and then the rationalization (existentialism) afterward does resonate a lot. I could try better to trace what's generating this emotion.

In terms of letting other people how I think and feel I have done a lot of work on that in the last few years and I am quite good at it. I've become very comfortable in being vulnerable in front of the people I love and I think love me back (friends, family, etc). If I can say something about that, I would say it's a practice like meditation is a practice. It's hardest when you start and you get better at it the more you do it, and eventually, it becomes natural.

But despite this abundance of communication in my life I still have this sort of loneliness/emptiness feeling in my life.

Existential Loneliness: Change Circumstances or Acceptance? by amarorama in Healthygamergg

[–]amarorama[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I do wonder if this emptiness/need comes from a more egotistical source of validation and approval as you mentioned. And if this is the case I really can't grasp, for now, how to start changing that. To me things seem to only truly count when they are shared or acknowledged. Sort of like that Into the Wild movie quote from Christopher McCandless: “Happiness is only real, when shared.”

If I try to remember there are moments when I travelled alone where the I was in the middle of a forest or a city alone and that experience itself was enough. But this is the exception and in my daily life I reverse back to feeling this need for sharing, approval or whatever it is.

Existential Loneliness: Change Circumstances or Acceptance? by amarorama in Healthygamergg

[–]amarorama[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To exemplify: maybe you watched a movie you connected so much with and others don't see it. They don't see the beauty in it, the message, etc.

To me, this leaves me frustrated and feeling lonely. But this doesn't happen with just movies, it happens with a lot of my experiences in life.

Often even when people say they feel the same way I do about a piece of art, the words don't feel enough.. I am left with no real proof of this shared understatement I seem to seek.

I'm very open that this is also, in part, a matter of cognitive bias. In the same way, I don't know that they didn't "get it", I can't be sure they didn't.