LPT Request: Dealing with loneliness

I am not 19 years old anymore but 49 and, as a divorced father of 2, I also experience loneliness and would like to share my experience in mitigating it's effects.

TLDR version: Loneliness is a product of evolution. Disassociate yourself (who you are) from your feelings and only pay attention to feelings that improve you. This is not a cure, just an explanation of what "loneliness" is. Once you understand that, your suffering should decrease somewhat.

Firstly, I am coming from the point of view of "what" we are (consciousness). This definition varies from person to person but I am convinced that "you" (Skyzblu44) are the side effects of the regulation needs of a monkey.

It's my opinion that "You" are an emergent property that the cells in your body never planned for. Consciousness emerged to allow our species of monkey to more efficiently extract negentropy from the environment (to extract food from nature more efficiently. To build more complex structures. Essentially to be better at surviving). I say our cells never planned for the emergence of "You" because much of what we are doing is actually pushing back on evolution, and cells are the operating system that contains evolutionary code. Cell behaviour is the foundation of evolution. Life is the cell. If you point at anything in this world that is alive, it is either a cell or contains multiple cells. We often think of the human species as the dominant form of life on earth, but the "victory" should ultimately be claimed by the cell; not us. The first cell never died, it merely split.

Nearly everything we as a species find valuable is pushing back against evolution. Your iPhone, enlightenment principles, scientific method, the fact we stopped raping eachother, equality for all even the sick and feeble. Valuing those in our tribe that cannot effectively contribute to our survival. All of this is fighting against evolution.

I say our cells never planned for your emergence, because it's my belief, that your emergence is the first step in the cell's own destruction (human cell). And evolutionary code would not take steps to initiate a plan for it's own destruction. I know I sound crazy but bare with me.

Why is this important to understand? Most of our most powerful emotions that arrive in consciousness (loneliness, hunger, horniness, feeling of safety etc) arise via our cells communicating with our conscious mind. This is part of our evolutionary software. Remember, nearly everything we as a species find valuable is pushing back against evolution. Elon Musk and other highly intelligent people want to separate "us" from our bodies for a reason. I would claim this is because the end game of any species of life when constructing a society where it's members do not unnecessarily suffer is ultimately separating that "thing" that is you from unneeded evolutionary code that causes you to unnecessarily suffer (in some cases. It is, of course, still useful in different contexts we find ourselves in)

After I say all this, it's my belief that loneliness is evolutionary code incentivizing you to find other members of your tribe. Evolutionary anthropoligists posit there was a singularity of sorts in our human species where we massively outcompeted not only other life forms, but also our hominid cousins. We ate/killed our cousins because we, as a species, have a superpower of sorts; and that superpower is how we cooperate with eachother. That, along with other reasons like cooked food, our amazing throwing ability, when put together is what our cells are incentivizing us to pursue.

I think it was in the book Sapiens where the author paints a picture "Imagine 70,0000 babboons all inside a football stadium." It would be complete chaos. Humans not only are able to congregate in such numbers without murdering/raping eachother; but we are able to spontaneously cooperate in this visual display where I put my hands up, then down, then my neighbor also does this in a perfectly timed fashion where a "wave" is created.

Your loneliness and suffering derived from this feeling is your cells thinking they are doing you a favor. A little suffering goes a long way in our protected society so do not give the feelings too much power by concentrating on it more than necessary. This requires you be able to disassociate yourself from these feelings (axiomatic to cognitive therapy, mindfullness meditation and eastern religions).

There are humans that go into caves and spend years without human contact. In western society this is rare, but it shows that introspection and conscious understanding of who you are can overcome evolutionary signals rudely entering consciousness.

It's ok to feel lonely now because you understand it's cause. Just understand it is probably not something that is actually helping you, so try and treat it as such.

This is not a cure, only an attempt to understand it's cause; which I hope helps you.

/r/LifeProTips Thread