Do we need to cure loneliness or better understand it?

She traded out a lemonade stand for one that offers psychiatric help for 5¢. A boy approaches whose hair looks like a bass cliff knocked on its side. He sits down and asks, “Can you cure loneliness?” She replies, “For a nickel, I can cure anything.” He presses her again, “Can you cure deep-down, black, bottom-of-the-well, no-hope, end-of-the-world, what's-the-use loneliness?”  She screams back, “FOR THE SAME NICKEL?”

Let's have a dialogue about loneliness

I like the Charlie Brown Valentine special. The exchanges between Lucy and Charlie Brown are classic. While I don’t want to take away from this cute and funny scene, it does make me think about how loneliness is perceived by others. Loneliness is a subject that isn’t often discussed yet permeates our culture. I think the above exchange gives us some clues as to why. To admit that you are lonely implies that something is wrong with you, that you are broken and need to be fixed. Lonely people are branded as hopeless, negative thinkers that haven’t found their purpose in life. If this was all true, then the entire human race consists of nothing but losers. This is, of course, a ridiculous statement. We all have been lonely at some point in our lives. The 2 dimensional caricatures of loneliness do not even begin capture the complexity of the situations people find themselves in.  I believe we need to better understand loneliness.

So what does loneliness mean in our lives and what are helpful and humorous ways we’ve discovered in dealing with it? These questions are going to form the basis of a new photo 365 day blog. I want to interview people of all ages and backgrounds and hear their answers to these questions. These questions will accompany a photograph that relates to  It is my hope that this produces dialogue about this subject that is meaningful and helpful.  If you are interested in learning more about this project or participating in it, you can visit my new blog, Lonely Mythos.

A quick word about adding comments to this blog. Because my blog is rated for mature content (because I sometimes post my art nudes here), Google will not allow comments to be posted within the blog itself.  I regret that this has limited our interaction here.  Feel free instead to join the discussion on my Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/figurativearc  You can also follow me on Google + and comment there. I’m happy that my new blog won’t have this limitation.  Thanks for reading J