Detachment
Detachment. Detachment. Detachment. I’m naturally detached. It’s not just because of this Zen retreat. I think part of it has to do with not feeling like I’m a part of my environment because it’s hard for me to interact sometimes. Half the time, I’m a spectator; an observer on the sidelines. That’s not to say that I don’t participate and live my life to its fullest, or is it? Maybe I don’t but, I’m trying my best. Halfway around the world is a good start, right? Even so, detachment has come easy for me. I’m a naturally quiet person. I reflect and think before I say things, often erroring on thinking too much.
Sometimes, conflicts arise in our group. People stress out. People bicker. And that’s natural. Often times, the loudest people with the most to say are also the ones with the biggest egos.
If you take a step back and look outside of the situation–any situation–it starts to become funny. Life is silly and frivolous. It’s like how I sometimes laugh in sad parts of movies. It’s just a movie. I’m just an observer. I’m not in the situation and knowing that ceases to captivate me. Sometimes, the only thing I can do is laugh.
Don’t take things so seriously. Life isn’t serious. Learn to laugh a little, or a lot! This is how I stay youthful.
I’m rarely in the eye of the storm. I’m always on the edge; the outside looking in. Most of the time, I feel I’m going through life out-of-place. I don’t fit in. I never belong. It’s hard for me to engage in groups. I always feel different even when faced with a group of people who feel different. I have no anchor. I have no home.
This is how I naturally detach.
Before you pin me as some sad case who needs a shrink, I can tell you that I’ve learned to accept this frame of mind. I’m not sad by it, and I’m the happiest that I’ve ever been. I’ve learned to appreciate and be grateful for my natural detachment. This helps me live a life with less disappointments because I’m able to let things go. And before you pin me for someone cold or callous, I’m not that either. In my own dramas–usually pertaining to romantic relationships–I have been full of attachment, of the unhealthy kind. I’m still trying to figure that one out… I’m not immune to the emotional turbulence that relationships may foster, and it becomes hard to detach.
Too much detachment can be just as bad. We’re humans in a human world. It’s healthy to experience human things using our human senses. Detaching and transcending the senses by living a life of ascetics can be too extreme. In daily life, detachment can hurt when you disassociate too much from your problems or environment causing conflicts with your peers or coworkers. When I feel stressed, I can detach from the feeling of being stressed, but this often leads me to procrastination and not finishing projects. Being too detached has caused me to be fired from a job (too much internet surfing and dreaming of traveling and escaping the nine to five; one of the best things that’s happened to me), as well as risk living life too much on the sidelines and not being open to new relationships (I’m still a commitmentphobe as far as I know).
That middle path, striking the balance from attachment and detachment is always tricky, but it’s learning to live in these balances that I strive to achieve.
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7 Responses to “Detachment”
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I was looking for the term solitary dieting or weight loss when I found your site. Why? because I too am very detached and while I am grad school, I have no intention of changing that for the forseable(?) future. I really identified with your post on the subject of detachment. Basically life happened and I realize that detachment is a large part of my weight issues along with loneliness. I too have gone thru periods of daydreams instead of reality and yeah, as lonely as I get, I am at the age where people can get on my nerves (WHY are you breathing so loud!!). So it was nice to see your take on it.
Thanks for commenting! It’s rare that a google searcher stays and comments I think. While I didn’t focus on weight loss issues here, they can certainly apply to detachment.. Actually, a LOT. You have to be able to detach from food and the emotional comforts they may bring (emotional eating). Vegetarianism, a diet I’ve currently switched to for four months and hope to continue, is having to detach yourself from meat and the cravings you may have. Now, if I can only detach myself to junk food/processed foods.. heheh. Food is a hard one..
I can relate very much to feeling like a spectator on the sidelines. I felt like this from high school to college and I can still remember how it felt like. Now, I’m not as detached (kinda hard to detach from the person you wake up next to every morning). Still, it is pretty natural for me to be solitary, content to be with a few people like my wife and child, not going out much, not having a very wide social circle despite being capable of social interaction, etc.
I don’t know if you have the same experience but I’ll share my experience with detachment when I was younger:
I used to play this drama to myself about how detached and solitary I was, how much of a loner I was, how different I was, etc. Then I (very gradually) realized it was just that: a drama. It’s not that I’m not solitary by nature (I AM) – it’s that I made it into an issue when there was no issue. Without realizing it, (or perhaps some part of me “knew” but the rest of me refused to see it) I was playing a part in a story I’d envisioned: the cool and somewhat aloof lone ranger, capable of social interaction but too cool and smart to be immersed in the drama of human relationships.
These days I’m still more or less solitary, and I still have the lone ranger in me, but more and more I know when I’m playing a part in a play in my mind.
Btw, thanks to this post I got inspired to write more on detachment, attachment, and non-attachment (not the link below). Thanks for being the muse. _/|\_
wow, you described my childhood experience perfectly as well! i definitely made a drama of it, and woe is me (against the world) type of play.. I hated how solitary or introverted/shy i was. Now i’ve learned to deal with it better, and instead of hating it, i consider this more of a strength. because i’m able to tune within myself better than most people would. and thus i can commune with my inner intuition, and spirituality. it would be interesting to find someone i could feel comfortable with in a relationship you described. i used to have that but ultimately we both detached
he was a bit of a lone wolf himself and i don’t think our similarities worked out in that way at ALL. i can see the value of having the smaller world/social circle though. right now, i’m expanding my world, but i think having a small world (ie family) would be quite nice.. especially now that i’ve experienced the monastery and how the small(ish) world here suits me just fine. it’s all in where your mind lies. you can create a ‘happy’ or ‘sad’ experience..
do you think feelings of detachment has roots on being an only child?
how’s manila?
great observation. i’m pretty sure being an only child has a lot to do with it..
manila is great! i’m sooo close to the bay too!