Comfort and loneliness

I now think that comfort is the key word for us. We all want to be comforted somehow, either by a belief, a partner, a parent, a friend and finally when having nothing and nobody else at that moment, we want to be comforted by ourselves. Recently I spoke to a therapist who told me that being lonely was not the same as being alone. Being lonely would involve suffering and pain whereas being alone was just great company; it was all about being with oneself. I live with my partner and I am never ever alone, not even when I want to be. I like to be alone at times, and when I do, I don’t feel lonely. But the way she said it made me realize that it was something she had previously given a lot of thought, and one only thinks a lot about things that bother him or her deeply. I would never say it to her face, but to me she is a lonely lady who fools herself thinking she is not lonely, she is just in the great company of herself. Don’t get me wrong, maybe she is a great person and truly great company. I just think that anybody who goes through all these mind processes and word selections to make a point to oneself is not at peace on that matter. It is like when I asked my brother about God and he had no opinion on the matter because he just didn’t care for the subject, it truly meant nothing to him, it is just something that he didn’t have to think about. He was at peace with that. The therapist on the other hand is one lonely lady.

Do we need to have a religion? Does mankind need religion in general?

I keep asking myself and frankly so far I do not have a good answer. All sorts of religions, honestly, sound very childish to me (no offence meant) and it is really weird to believe that some people actually tie their purpose to something as impalpable as religion. To me it feels like a club, either you are part of it or you are not. I mean who is anyone to say the guy who is Hindu or Buddhist is wrong and the Christians or Catholics are right. There are so many beliefs, so many symbols, so many rituals. In a way I feel that any religion is important to a certain community, family, group in general. Those people enjoy living by those rules even when it doesn't benefit them, simply because it is just so much more simple not to decide your life. When you outsource and you have a rabbi, priest or whoever telling you how to live your life you don't have to think, to make decisions, to suffer. Because even when following what your wisdom guy says makes you suffer, you do have the comfort of knowing you are following the rules, so you are "right". Anyways, in short, it is easy to have a religion, you just read your manual (Bible, Torah, Koran...) and abide by the rules.