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A friend is a person who, when you have made a fool of yourself, doesn't feel you have
done a permanent job of it.
Several writers have suggested finding solace, instead of misery, in
solitude (Andre, 1990; Storr, 1988). That's changing the situation by
looking at it differently or reframing.
Level V (unconscious factors): Jules Henry (1971) observed,
"People are lonely because they are vulnerable and they are vulnerable
because they are alone; they are vulnerable when they are without
love and they are vulnerable when they have it." Almost everything
that threatens us makes us aware of our aloneness. Example: the
more we need others for protection (and the more we distrust our
protectors), the lonelier we feel. So if we are threatened by an
economic depression, by a collapse of our government, by the failure
of Social Security, by war, by unemployment, we feel alone--we fear
abandonment. Splitting with others over political, economic, social and
other issues increases our aloneness. This may seem abstract, but
Henry points out that we are vulnerable to failure every day. The fear
of failure confronts us in school, at work, in sports, in love, etc. When
we face failure--like taking a test--we are alone and we feel needy.
When we run away from stress, we usually run alone.
Most psychologists and sociologists see loneliness as a result of the
environment (as in the last paragraph). Taking a different viewpoint,
Ben Mijuskovic (1980), like the Existentialists, regards aloneness as
the basic nature of humans, not a result of our childhood or our
circumstances. He says loneliness is not an illness to be "cured" or
treated with social reform; it is an unavoidable human condition to be
faced. As we recognize our aloneness, we struggle desperately to find
something more stable than ourselves to depend on. Death is not
horrifying to us because it might be the end of everything, i.e. no
awareness whatsoever, but rather because our consciousness might
continue and we would be all alone. It is interesting, indeed, that all
conceptions of an afterlife involve being with God and others or
returning to life in another form, i.e. a way to reduce loneliness.
Thomas Wolfe in Look Homeward, Angel wrote about one of his
characters: "He understood that men were forever strangers to one
another, that no one ever comes to really know any one... Which of us
has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's
heart?... Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? ...we escape
it (aloneness) never, no matter what arms may clasp us, what mouth
may kiss us, what heart may warm us. Never, never, never, never,
never."
Mijuskovic says we try to keep ourselves occupied with studies,
work, chores, social activities, what others are doing, TV, music,
