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How Art Transforms Loneliness into Aloneness
Learning To Be Okay With My Aloneness
It is said that empathy is a great deterrent to isolation. What if I said that you don’t need to constantly be around people to be empathic? Perhaps the greatest source of empathy lies in art — music, literature, paintings, architecture, or films.
Art lays bare the perpetual banality, confusion, or unfairness of life. In all forms, good art always reminds us that it’s ordinary to feel unhappy, confused, and bored. Let’s break this down:
I. ART INTRODUCES US TO TRAGEDY
Take, for instance, the great novel Anna Karenina. It’s the story of a beautiful, rich woman who still could never find peace in her marriage, had an extra marital affair, and ultimately took her own life in a horrendous way. Just the bare plot sounds grim but those of you who’ve read the book would consider Anna’s story beautifully tragic and heartbreaking.
My point is, art gives you the comfortable knowledge that sadness and vapidity are ubiquitous features of almost everybody’s life, and not just something out of place or specially invented to torture a particular person…
