My relationship with solitude

Human beings consider themselves social animal. Studies on "theory of evolution" suggest our development as one of the fittest species has a lot to do with our social demeanor. We have an amazing ability to collaborate, find answers to difficult problems, tap into each other's mind and create magic. No doubt we have found reasons to stay around our peers, finding strength in their presence and prospering collectively.

I enjoyed socializing in my previous avatar. Work hard and party harder used to be the life mantra. Usually after any significant life event our mind evolves. I too found my way around darkness and stumbled upon a gift that is solitude. 

My experience suggests that when you go through immense pain for a prolonged period of time, your conscious and subconscious tries to rid itself of the pain, leading to strange behavioral changes within yourself. 

The mechanism of these behavioral changes require the conscious and subconscious realms to work in collaboration. The conscious and subconscious realms share a bridge that is used to share information. Dreams are the predominant medium of information exchange from the conscious to the subconscious mind. Thus, when human body and the conscious mind are continuously finding ways to get rid of the pain, information is shared with the subconscious, which has an immense ability to make structural changes that are extremely powerful and can last as a behavioral life change.

While the human subconscious mind has immense potential for powerful change. It doesn't distinguish between different types of pain or problems. It believes in wholesale changes. Thus, when the subconscious gets informed of pain, instead of identifying the kind of problem causing the pain, it acts in totality and starts finding an answer by which the conscious must get rid of all kinds of pain. These answers get passed on to the conscious mind overtime resulting in a changed personality that hardly feels any kind of sensation. Both emotions of happiness and pain subsides, proving the theory that the human body has an inbuilt mechanism to protect itself from external and internal harm. 

While the subconscious keeps passing these answers for the conscious to consume, it involves a medium for the conscious to receive information. Subconscious usually receives information via dreams since it can decode the language and decrypt the message. Unfortunately, the conscious finds it really hard to decode the language of dreams, thus most of the time we don't remember what we dreamt of. And even if we remember we can't find the meaning behind it. The conscious mind needs to be awake but not occupied. Thus, it is in solitude when the conscious receives information from the subconscious mind. These are very powerful messages that the conscious has never received before. It challenges the basic premise of what the conscious has been learning throughout its existence. It questions the basic meaning of life and purpose of existence. All this information paints a contradictory picture and shatters the preconceived realities that the conscious is aware of.

This phase is the uncertainty realm and is one of the most difficult phases for the conscious. Result is a confused individual with different kinds of information. The individual starts to churn out irrational thoughts which don't make sense and the human being starts contradicting itself. Usually in this phase, the individual's social life suffers as society starts having second thoughts about the person's rationality. Some even recommend visits to psychiatrists.

Slowly, the individual moves away from society and seeks refuge in solitude. As the conscious mind dives in solitude, it has a brainwave. The information from the subconscious starts to make sense. The message turns concrete and starts to take form. Meaning of life starts to change and the worldview turns on its head. The conscious starts to stare at truth and realizes the pain and problems that engulfed it was its own creation. It was the remainder of an unfinished equation. The equation starts solving itself once you face the truth. Your truth! 

My time in solitude puts me in touch with my subconscious and like a curious child I seek answers from it. My subconscious informs me that it is the conscious that is responsible for pain as “consciousness is nothing but the desire to live.” Consciousness is responsible for knowledge, at the same time knowledge appeared, desire arose. Desire is the reason for all kinds of pain in life.

All desires arise from need, therefore from deficiency and therefore from suffering. The fulfillment of a wish ends it; yet for one wish that is fulfilled there remains at least ten that are denied. Further, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite; the satisfaction is short and scantily measured out. But even the final satisfaction in itself is only apparent. Every satisfied wish makes room for a new one; both are delusions; the one is known to be so; the other not yet. No attained object of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting gratification. It is like alms thrown to a beggar, keeping him alive today so that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. Therefore, as long as our consciousness is filled and we are given up to the urgent prompting of desires with their constant hopes and fears, as long as we are subject to our desires, we can never have lasting peace and pain will be our constant companion. The ceaseless effort to banish suffering accomplishes no more than to make it change in form. This is essentially need, want, concern for the preservation of life, If we succeed in banishing pain in this form, it immediately reappears in a thousand others, varying according to age and circumstances, such as the erotic drive, the passionate love, jealousy, envy, hatred, anxiety, ambition, sickness and so on.

As I seek answers to escape the claws of desire and dive deep into my own truth, I find the process of knowing myself through solitude really empowering. I don't feel the need of company as i complete myself through solitude. Having lived half of my life in this mortal realm, I hope to spend the other half in solitude finding my own truth. Hopefully a day will come when I will be able to know myself and eventually would be able to own myself.