June 30, 2009- My recent postings about loneliness seem to have struck a chord. The blog is always interesting, in a number of ways. I am always surprised at what reaches out to people, and what comes back. Although I can’t read all of it much of the time, this new ability to connect with people is still fascinating.
  I am not sure whether this explosion in personal messaging eases loneliness, or simply reinforces it. Last year, when I was struggling with anxiety and fear, my response would often be to write about it. I was always surprised, and touched, by what would come back to me, even in the middle of the night. At first, I saw these messages as transient, glancing. The Web also makes it easy for the angry and disturbed to be heard. Then, there are these radioactive jewels of writing and insight that help me grow, challenge me as a writer, force me to think and react. Good for a writer, good for a human being.
  But loneliness can’t, I think, be eased by anything so external. It is visceral, ingrained, part of the neural systems of some people, including me. I love being with someone, sharing my life her, but I also know that being alone is a very natural state for me, and sometimes, a comfortable one.
  Being alone is important, even beautiful, although sharing my life is better. Writing from the center of the dog and animal culture – while feeling quite apart from it – I have come to see, in my own life and in the lives of others, that we are an existentially lonely people. Technology is stressful, communications, like news, often the illusion of information and connection. It only goes so far.
  Real connection, I have come to learn, involves touch, seeing, listening, sharing.  Animals do provide support, succor, affection, companionship. Important things. But they remind me, as I often am reminded, that they are not people, and cannot do for us the things that people can do. Nor can they completely ease the loneliness we sometimes feel. That is too big a burden for them, and for us.