Five Sounds of Solitude

Once upon a time, beyond the world, there was a realm where all philosophers, writers and mythological beings met. The name of this land was the Land of Eternal Thoughts. One day, five of the wisest inhabitants of this realm came together and began to talk about loneliness. These wise men were: Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Marx, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka and Hades.

Jean-Paul Sartre: Solitude and Existence

Sartre began his speech deep in thought:
"Loneliness is the inevitable destiny of man. Every individual experiences this loneliness while trying to make sense of his or her existence. As I wrote in my book 'Being and Nothingness', our freedom is also the source of our loneliness. Human beings find a place in the world through their own choices, but they are alone in this process. Even our relationships with others, in fact, return us to our own inner loneliness."

Karl Marx: Loneliness and Alienation

After listening to Sartre's words, Marx reflected and added:
"I agree, Sartre, but loneliness is also rooted in the social structure. The capitalist system alienates people from their labor, their production and each other. Alienated individuals experience a deep sense of loneliness when they are alienated even from their own creations. This loneliness is not only an individual problem, but a social one."

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Loneliness and Human Nature

Listening to their words, Dostoevsky sighed and began to speak:
"Loneliness is a reality that lies deep in the human soul. In works such as 'Crime and Punishment' and 'The Brothers Karamazov' I have tried to depict the inner conflicts and loneliness of man. Raskolnikov's guilt and Ivan Karamazov's reckoning with God show how deeply people feel their inner loneliness. Loneliness is the process of questioning one's own existence."

Franz Kafka: Solitude and Existential Fear

After listening in silence, Kafka spoke with a sad expression:
"For me, loneliness is an existential fear. In works such as 'The Trial' and 'The Transformation', I described how individuals become lost and alienated within social structures. Gregor Samsa's transformation into an insect symbolizes the sense of loneliness and meaninglessness that the individual experiences within society. Loneliness is an inevitable existential experience."

Hades Solitude and Eternity

Hades began to speak in a voice that came from the depths of the underworld:
"I, the ruler of the underworld, face the deepest and darkest side of loneliness every day. When I rule in the world of the dead, loneliness is part of eternity for me. People are alone even in death, and this loneliness forces them to face themselves. Loneliness is a silence that echoes in the depths of the soul."

After these five sages shared their deep thoughts on loneliness, each of them was about to go on their way when someone else came to the table. No one at the table recognized this mysterious person.   He pulled a chair from another table and sat down. He looked at the 5 people at the table and said the following:

I listen to you with my eyes closed but my heart is full of your memories. Your words, your works and your names are like a great sun that illuminates and shakes the whole humanity, but it cannot illuminate the darkness of your own world. It is time to put aside the fancy words...

Dear Sarte, weren't you lonely with a vague smile on your face as you walked the streets of Paris, the place you loved so much and called home? One day, sitting in a small café in Montparnasse, you questioned the meaning of existence. Didn't you feel that you were not fully understood, even in your relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, whom you called the meaning of your life? Isn't that "wall" actually your past, which you chipped away a piece at every time you tried to remove it from your inner world?

Dear Marx, how determined you were to fight the injustices of capitalism while living in exile in London. But didn't this struggle gradually drive you away from your family and loved ones?  Emotionally abandoning your wife Jenny von Westphalen, who left all her father's wealth to come to you because she loved you.  The pain of losing 4 of your 7 children to poverty before they reached adulthood was so deeply ingrained in you that you began to write about the struggle for social justice and equality in everything you wrote. When you were working for hours in the library in London, you felt the cold breath of loneliness on your neck while writing "Das Kapital", and while you were describing the alienation of laborers, weren't you actually expressing your own alienation?

Dear Dostoevsky, when you struggled with gambling debts and family problems in the cold winter nights of Russia, didn't you make a tomb of your own loneliness and enter it voluntarily every time? When you wrote "Crime and Punishment", when you described Raskolnikov's inner conflicts and loneliness, didn't you find your own disappointments and loneliness in the soul of this character? When you walked through the dark streets of St. Petersburg, when you grew your faith in God and humanity, didn't you feel as lonely as that darkness?

Dear Kafka, didn't you always feel isolated in the gloomy atmosphere of Prague, in the house where you lived with your family? When you wrote "The Transformation", didn't Gregor Samsa's transformation into an insect symbolize your own alienation and disappointments? Let me tell you about you through your letters. Doesn't this sentence you wrote to your father Hermann Kafka tell us how much you were like a sparrow in the whirlpool of loneliness? "In my relationship with you, I always felt that I was standing on the edge of an abyss. Your expectations and demands constantly pulled me into this abyss."

The heroine of platonic love. Do you remember this letter you wrote to Milena? "Milena, talking to you makes life bearable, if only for a moment. But every conversation also reminds me of my loneliness.

And precious Hades,

You, the ruler of the underworld, the great Hades whom everyone fears, wasn't it your own loneliness that you felt every time you listened to regrets when you talked to eternal souls in the land of the dead? When you kidnapped Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, you thought that you would cover your loneliness under the earth with love, but the fact that your beloved only stayed with you for 6 months of the year because of her love for her freedom and her family was nothing more than you comparing love to a spirit in the land of the dead?  

There was a great silence at the table. This was a stranger, but with what he knew, he was actually more local than they were. The silence at the table grew so great that these 5 great sages could no longer bear their loneliness in the face of this silent cry and each of them bowed to the stranger at the table and quietly got up from the table.

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