Seems I’m not alone in being alone

“By the time we wake up every morning, we find ourselves already here. From the womb of time, we were helplessly born sometime, some place, some gender, some race, and into some social class. Heidegger characterizes this phenomenon as us having been “thrown into the world”. When we become acutely conscious that we exist, we catch ourselves already in the world—the world in which we are, if you will, condemned to be and there is no escape until death removes us from the world.”- philossophy.wordpress.com

I have always enjoyed Message in a Bottle by The Police:

Just a cast away an island lost at sea-o
Another lonely day, no one here but me-o
More loneliness than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair-o

I’ll send an S.O.S. to the world
I’ll send an S.O.S. to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle yeah
Message in a bottle yeah

A year has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life but love can break your heart

Walked out this morning I don’t believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore
Seems I’m not alone in being alone
A hundred billion castaways looking for a home

Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
I’m sending out an S.O.S.
I’m sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.
Sending out an S.O.S.

Sting, who wrote Message in a Bottle in 1979 when he was with the band The Police, said in an interview, “I like the idea (in the song) that while it’s about loneliness and alienation it’s also about finding solace and other people going through the same thing. The guy’s on a desert island and throws a bottle out to sea saying he’s alone and all these millions of bottles come back saying, So what So am I! I like the fact that the whole deal is clinched by the third verse. It makes a journey.” - Sting, Q, 11/1993

https://g.co/kgs/l1UaI8

I like the pared down, plaintive version of the song by Ulf Wakenius and Youn Sun Nah. It’s melancholy, slower, dreamier. It’s closer to the feeling I had when I first saw the Police music video. Sting’s summary is tinged with a sense of hope; I guess my own focus was always on the strangely desolate moment when all the bottles wash ashore from other castaways. “Seems I’m not alone in being alone”. We share the alienation, but is that a reason for hope or a quiet despair?

Just a cast away on an island lost at sea-o
Another lonely day, no one here but me-o

More loneliness than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair-o

The lyrics bring to mind Heidegger’s “thrownness” (Geworfenheit)

see https://philossophy.wordpress.com/tag/thrownness/

and

https://www.google.co.za/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/29/religion-philosophy?client=ms-android-huawei

“Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was the most important and influential philosopher in the continental tradition in the 20th century… Heidegger has exerted a huge influence outside philosophy, in areas as diverse as architecture, contemporary art, social and political theory, psychotherapy, psychiatry and theology.”

– Being and Time, part 1: Why Heidegger matters, by Simon Critchley

(https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/05/heidegger-philosophy)

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