LONELINESS – It's just me and my dog!!!

LONELINESS – It's just me and my dog!!! This phrase evokes a powerful and often comforting image of absolute companionship. For many, loneliness accompanied by a dog is not an empty loneliness, but a way of being in the world filled with unconditional loyalty. Dogs are the friends who "will always lick our wounds" and are there when no one else is! "Portuguese loneliness has to do with what is missing, that is, with the lack that the Portuguese manage to create. Portugal is a factory of absences. No one is able to invent them as well as we are. No one is able to convince themselves so successfully of the great lack that non-existent things can create." (Miguel Esteves Cardoso) I've read somewhere that there are certain types of loneliness that relieve the feeling of being alone; it's clear that this only happens in certain circumstances. Being on the outside, not fitting in, can be a source of satisfaction and even pleasure; it's a kind of vacation or even a cure. Hannah Arendt, a German political philosopher of Jewish origin, defended the existence of three forms of being alone: ​​solitude, being alone (abandoned), and isolation. "Solitude implies that, although I am alone, I am with someone (that is, with myself). It means that I am two in one, while isolation and the feeling of abandonment do not know this form of division, this inner dichotomy in which I can ask questions and receive an answer." Furthermore, Georges Moustaki, a Romaniote Jew (Greek culture) from Alexandria, wrote perhaps one of the most beautiful eulogies to this solitude that Hannah Arendt spoke of: "Having slept so many times/ with my solitude,/ I almost made it a friend/ a sweet routine,/ it doesn't leave me for a single step/ faithful as a shadow./ It followed me here and there,/ to the four corners of the world./ No, I am never truly alone/ with my solitude." We have a complete understanding that solitude is a common human experience – we can all feel it at some point in our lives. But despite being so frequent, it is also one of the most difficult experiences to define, understand, and admit. Therefore, a deep and very precise reflection on the nature of loneliness becomes necessary: • "Difficult to confess": Loneliness is still seen by many as a sign of social or personal failure. Confessing it generates shame or fear of seeming "undesirable," which leads to silent isolation. • "Difficult to categorize": It's not just being alone (physical isolation), but feeling lonely. Someone can be surrounded by people and feel profoundly lonely, or be physically alone and feel fulfilled. • "Crosses depression": Although different, chronic loneliness and depression feed off each other. Loneliness can lead to depression, and depression generates isolation that causes loneliness. • "Become ingrained in a person's fabric": When left untreated, loneliness ceases to be a passing feeling and becomes part of the identity and the way the person sees the world, affecting physical and mental health. It is an invisible wound, but one that hurts as much as a physical wound, as neuroscientific studies indicate, showing that social rejection activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. Recognizing this "difficulty in categorizing" is the first step towards empathy, both with ourselves and with others. As Fernando Pessoa said: "When I am alone, I recognize that I exist among others who are like me, alone. And if I feel how truly alone I am, I feel free but sad. I go freely wherever I go, but where I go, nothing exists."