The absolute longing for human affection starts at the very inception of life itself. A baby cradling, craving to somehow get rid of his solitary existence. Crawling, yearning for his mother’s presence. Growing, looking for someone to love with all his heart. Aging, longing for affection from the once he once loved.
This is the perennial yearning of a person. That ails a soul, from life till death and in every phase of one’s existence. The innate desire to end our isolation. It’s a reason to live: to break this nutshell that envelops us whole. Without this drive, our life would just be lost and meaningless.
To find an exit from this solitary confinement, our search commences. We look around- hunting, beckoning, reeling, only to find ourselves in the presence of a myriad of souls, and yet feeling the emptiness of a lone soldier. It is a feeling as profound as ever. We stand puzzled and confused. Even in this crowd, the search for someone who could undo the maddening solitude seems futile. We find solace in the names of our societies and cultures, but instead of mitigating one another’s loneliness, we all, in our combined numbers, still feel lonely.
Every one of us is running. Running to find someone that can escape us from this curse. We run till we get tired, we run till we can run no more, we keep running to get away from this irking remoteness till we lay still and motionless. And despite all the efforts, at the end of the day, we are back to where we started from. As single and lost as ever.
We cry in misery; we agonize over the loss a loved one, questioning if the misery ever ends. But the vicious circle continues, time refusing to be kind and life refusing to stop. The urge to overcome this void deepens again, and this cycle repeats itself… incessantly… till we cease to breathe and are buried with no one but our coffin in a solitary grave.
We die in despair, the same state in which we come into this world: Alone. All alone.
