167. Suffering And Solipsism

I go out into the world and I suffer. I suffer because it is too cold and the rain never ends. I suffer because there is too much work and so little time. I suffer because other people misunderstand me. I suffer because there is too much noise. I suffer because I have to respond to the endless demands of others. I suffer because everything is more expensive than before. I suffer because my friends are too busy for me. I suffer because people do not pay attention. I suffer because I desperately want everything to be different than it is.

All of this suffering causes me to stay home. I want to hide from the world. I want to be where everything is exactly as I want it to be. In my home, I am safe and protected. Everything that happens here is only what I want and never anything more. This is the only place I have peace.

The more I believe this is true, the more I isolate myself from the world. As I become more isolated, I concede more and more to my desires, my fears, and my beliefs. I become a kind of solipsist, living in the safety of my own created world. I become disinterested in the outside world and disconnected from other people. I focus only on myself and I start to lose sight of reality. I might even start to lose sight of meaning itself. I then find myself wondering why I am so lonely, why I crave social contact and intimacy.

The problem seems obvious when presented like this, but it is all too easy to forget that this can actually happen. When I isolate myself from the world, I become trapped in a kind of false individuality. It is the individuality of the solipsist for whom real life exists only in the self. I become a slave to my desires, I cower from my aversions, and I become delusional in my beliefs. Rather than escaping from suffering, I cause it multiply endlessly.

The only way out of the trap is to go in search of the other, to allow the world back in. For that to happen, I must grant myself the tiniest drop of compassion, just enough to help me take some kind of action to meet my need for the other. I must begin to reconnect with the world, for that is the only way I can become part of reality once again.