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'Alienation' sounds negative because it is associated with negative emotions - loneliness being chief amongst them. It is also negative because of the perceived absence of emotion that the alienated thinks he should feel. If I were to be perfectly honest with myself, I can recognise the injustice of many a plight but rarely do I feel some burning need to do something about it.
It's this lack of connection that disturbs and makes me wonder if I "ought" to feel a certain way but don't. The deficit is interpreted as evidence of pathology. My mind searches for possible explanations; perhaps I'm narcissistic, sociopathic or on the spectrum. Perhaps all three - and any other category I haven't read about yet.
Instead of just judging this as a "bad thing" about me though, I can instead engage it with curiosity. Let me embody it into a separate entity I'll dub the Advisor:
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"What's the point of dedicating yourself to these problems? We're not going to solve the war in Ukraine. We're not going to stop domestic violence. We're not going to end discrimination. It's all tilting at windmills.
There are more immediate problems to solve. The deep sense of dissatisfaction, for one. We're overweight. We're not financially secure. We don't apply ourselves to reach out ambitions consistently.
To help these causes out of a feeling of inadequacy is to live in bad faith. You'd be doing these things to either virtue signal, satisfy your own ego or in the hope of meeting another desire, such as to meet someone and "fall in love".
So on the one hand we see a Big Problem that is intractable, never mind solveable. On the other hand we have a set of motives which essentially boil down to "I want to rid myself or the emptiness I feel." Don't you think that perhaps it's be wiser to go straight to the root of the problem rather than distract yourself?
Does this mean that we cannot donate to a worthy cause or volunteer? No. What it does mean is that the feeling of our ego being at a deficit is generated by a different source, one found within us rather than from the world without.
To be sure, there is a chicken and egg problem here. Perhaps emptiness can be fulfilled by giving yourself unto others. But if that were the case with us, why would we not have chosen this path the way we keep turning to the arts? And besides, is your art not intended to help? Aren't these words intended to find the occasional reader who may identify with your feelings and feel less isolated in the world?
Yes, the possibility of all this being a rationalisation to appease your ego is present. The truth is we never really know the complete truth about ourselves and our motives because who we are transcends our conscious thought. This is the burden of your responsibility: you have to choose to trust yourself even though you acknowledge the possibility you may be lying to yourself."
