I was sitting out at dinner tonight, alone, as is my usual deal, thinking about that circumstance, when the words went through my head.

“It’s your own fault.”

If you sit at dinner alone, it’s your own fault.

If you live alone, it’s your own fault.

If you spend too much time alone, it’s your own fault.

If you are lonely, it’s your fault.

It’s my own fault.

Because somewhere within, at some time, I made me most important, in the bulk of all the things I do, so that I would guarantee I’d be alone.

The bottom line is, it’s an austere dedication to self. It’s a dominating adherence to a need to control my environment. It’s a protection mechanism. It’s life and time management.

Whatever I tell myself it might be, or be due to, the truth is, it’s largely just a deeply ingrained selfishness.

I know this because I feel it within about my actions. They often don’t feel right.

C.S. Lewis quipped famously in one of his wartime radio addresses that pain is God’s megaphone, “to rouse a deaf world”. We certainly recognize physical pain and the intensity of its discomfort. I would guess there would be little difference in relation to psychic and emotional pain. Pain tells us something is not working right, and mental and emotional pain also tell us something inside is wrong.

And what we do with pain of any form is our decision.

I remember that comical meme from junior high and high school. Turn an ankle? Coach would say “Walk it off.” There are certainly cases in life to push through periods of discomfort. But with questions of the spirit, is that ever an apt answer as well?

In 2015, an Australian research team tried to guesstimate how many people were addicts worldwide. Their number came in at roughly 1.25 billion- which is a conservative number, I’d have to say, because it quantified only those who were dependent on alcohol, smoking, and injected drugs like heroin. Not considered in the study were those addicted to food, or to adrenaline, or pornography and sex (in which one study found that over 60% of men in the United States looked at pornography at least once a month), which may be largely a first-and-wired-world problem, but also may not because humans are humans.

And it is also true that many addicts are addicted to several things. We can consider that when leveling the number of people there are addicted to substance a, substance b, and/or substance c.

Still, if 1.25 billion people in the world are addicted to some sort of substance, and there are nearly 7.5 billion people on earth today, that means that over a sixth of us- 16%- live each day in self-medication.

16% of the world lives in a state of inner distress that demands anesthetic alleviation.

And a heart in flight is a poor lover.

Because a heart in flight has a hard time being fully there. Or being willing to be fully there. Especially when some “thing” can make me feel good when more often than not, others don’t.

Because I cannot figure how to be myself with them.

Which is where circle back to the issue of my fault, and my faults.

Love is a choice, and like every one I ultimately make, through them I propound my value system. I can talk good about God and helping others, but it is still the actions that validate the attitude, and if you sit around alone all the time, you choose it. If you do it because you struggle with people and having good relationships, you also choose that. And if you have pain inside that you ignore or deny and then do not deal with constructively, you also choose that. And however you end up medicating yourself.

It’s easy to see reasons for vacancies in my life, but are they good excuses for my frustrations, my bitterness, my grudges?

People hurt people, yeah- but life is what you do with that. And what you do with yourself.

And what you do with the question of what is important in life.

Yeah- maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re supposed to be able to live alone, independent of others, and be whole, complete, and rise above.

I’d think I’d have a clear answer on that for myself. I’ve been practicing it for twenty years now, and I’d think that would be enough time to come to conclusions.

I’ve missed too much in my loved one’s lives, and in my own life, because of my rigorous commitment to autonomy, space and life control, and self-protectionism. In all of my “keeping in”, I’ve done too much “missing out”. On sharing time and laughs and trips with once kids who are now teens and soon-to-be adults. I’ve missed out on friendships. I’ve heard those can be pretty good. And I’ve missed out on marital love, which cannot survive in spouses who each embrace dual citizenships (“You live in your world, and I’ll live in mine.”). Love requires commitment, camaraderie, cooperation, and fundamentally, sacrifice.

And you can’t do that stuff if you never stay still, never stand beside, never stop running, or never see others- beyond their appearance and what you think they can do for you.

There’s a lot of addiction out there.

A lot of pain.

A lot of self-medication.

A lot of self.

Each of has to decide, at some point, that love is or is not worth it.

And if we do, it starts with the question of loving ourselves.

The question “Does this crap I’m using really help me?

The question “Or am I missing out on something greater in life I run from- who I am with, and for, and to others.”

The heart in flight is a poor lover.