Very excited to find out about your alter-ego stack! I’ve been adrift in basically a friendless zone since October of 2919 when for a variety of reason my husband decided we needed to move out of our home state of CA and relocate to SC. And then came COVID. It’s not been easy or fun trying to figure out this last phase of our life. I’m a very social person and miss the friends that I’d known for decades. We text or talk as often as we can, but its not a substitute for IRL. Substacks like yours has been my saving grace. Not only keeping me aware the perils of our reset times and engaging my brain, but also, and maybe most importantly, being able to connect regularly through the comments with other humans that aren’t my family.
I’m excited to learn about what you’ve been exploring. Thank you in advance. 🙏🏻
Here's a thought, free of charge (as in you get what you pay for ;) ) - You can only be alone, as in feeling alone, when among other humans.
Being physically alone when there are no other humans present, like when hiking outside trails f.e. isn't the same feeling as sitting in the faculty lounge and realising that your own ability to think (not IQ or intelligence, just a propensity and habit of thinking things through using their own internally consistent logic, and to the end no matter how absurd) puts you outside of the social group, since being in a group that only exists for its own social sake means not thinking things through, going on instinct and emotion rahter than intellect, and where fitting in by everyone practicing same-ness is how to be.
Feeling alone, alienated, atomised, and so on leads to being ostracised since the groups around you picks up on the otherness you radiate, and once one group/leader shows others you are acceptable target for shunning or even bullying the process is autmatic and everything you do will be interpreted in a pre-judging framework of interpretation, creating a recursive loop of confirmation bias that whatever the treatnet you receive, you've earned it.
I've seen it so many times at work (teacher) when neither kids nor adults can explain their behaviour against certain kids - it's an automatic process I think, same as with chickens when one of them gets pecked by all others and the hens just watch. People studying bullying have noticed that victims display a certain set of behaviours and characteristics which seem to trigger something in those with a personality of the bully-ish type, though how that information was received by the teaching profession, I'm sure you can imagine.
Just throwing this in the ring so to speak - lonelyness can of course also be approached from the sociological angle, where it was called 'anomie' among other terms back when I was a student.
I think some persons utilise the feeling of lonelyness as a defence, because they perceive belonging to a group as losing their sense of self and as the alternative to feeling belonging is feeling alone/estrangement they trap themselves in a cycle of trying to belong, feeling the loss of control mixed with the intoxication of being part of the pack, and upcomes the defence-feelings - often displayed as arrogance and aloofness.
Of course, having worked alot with "aspies" on the high end of the intelligence scale I'm biased in my perceptions somy sample group is perhaps not the go-to normal one.
Very excited to find out about your alter-ego stack! I’ve been adrift in basically a friendless zone since October of 2919 when for a variety of reason my husband decided we needed to move out of our home state of CA and relocate to SC. And then came COVID. It’s not been easy or fun trying to figure out this last phase of our life. I’m a very social person and miss the friends that I’d known for decades. We text or talk as often as we can, but its not a substitute for IRL. Substacks like yours has been my saving grace. Not only keeping me aware the perils of our reset times and engaging my brain, but also, and maybe most importantly, being able to connect regularly through the comments with other humans that aren’t my family.
I’m excited to learn about what you’ve been exploring. Thank you in advance. 🙏🏻
Here's a thought, free of charge (as in you get what you pay for ;) ) - You can only be alone, as in feeling alone, when among other humans.
Being physically alone when there are no other humans present, like when hiking outside trails f.e. isn't the same feeling as sitting in the faculty lounge and realising that your own ability to think (not IQ or intelligence, just a propensity and habit of thinking things through using their own internally consistent logic, and to the end no matter how absurd) puts you outside of the social group, since being in a group that only exists for its own social sake means not thinking things through, going on instinct and emotion rahter than intellect, and where fitting in by everyone practicing same-ness is how to be.
Feeling alone, alienated, atomised, and so on leads to being ostracised since the groups around you picks up on the otherness you radiate, and once one group/leader shows others you are acceptable target for shunning or even bullying the process is autmatic and everything you do will be interpreted in a pre-judging framework of interpretation, creating a recursive loop of confirmation bias that whatever the treatnet you receive, you've earned it.
I've seen it so many times at work (teacher) when neither kids nor adults can explain their behaviour against certain kids - it's an automatic process I think, same as with chickens when one of them gets pecked by all others and the hens just watch. People studying bullying have noticed that victims display a certain set of behaviours and characteristics which seem to trigger something in those with a personality of the bully-ish type, though how that information was received by the teaching profession, I'm sure you can imagine.
Just throwing this in the ring so to speak - lonelyness can of course also be approached from the sociological angle, where it was called 'anomie' among other terms back when I was a student.
I think some persons utilise the feeling of lonelyness as a defence, because they perceive belonging to a group as losing their sense of self and as the alternative to feeling belonging is feeling alone/estrangement they trap themselves in a cycle of trying to belong, feeling the loss of control mixed with the intoxication of being part of the pack, and upcomes the defence-feelings - often displayed as arrogance and aloofness.
Of course, having worked alot with "aspies" on the high end of the intelligence scale I'm biased in my perceptions somy sample group is perhaps not the go-to normal one.
Amything above of any use, feel free to do so!