The Inevitable Loneliness We Must Suffer
There is a solemn truth in certain philosophical texts. That the melancholy brought upon knowing more than the rest, evidently sets us apart from the very people we try helping by growing and reaching greater heights in order to live a better life.
That detachment from normalcy that we face as individuals who started on our journey by wanting to help those closest to us is our very downfall in the end.
We are consumed by our requirements, our constant questioning that leads to understanding. what was once blissful warm dreaming warps into the cold reality of the world, as the human condition becomes ever more clear to us, we are put in a constant state of wanting to avoid others, while simultaneously wanting human interaction.
Our obsessions on what is right and wrong drive us to insanity as we further isolate from our tribe, and our strict resolve on the subject of our beliefs allow others to call us insane. But we are not insane, we are in a state of disillusion by what we have learned about others.
David Hume, a Scottish philosopher that influenced the Scottish enlightenment, mentions this in his writings. That the state of philosophical melancholy was triggered by excessive research into human nature.
However, David Hume has a solution to the issue of philosophical melancholy. His writings reflect skepticism about melancholic states, and that the cure for this state of mind is, in his own words:
"Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther." -David Hume