Alone Together

April 6, 2025 Love & Relationship No Comments

This is obviously not the same as together together. Alone together means being close without touching — physically, maybe emotionally, yet not quite mentally. It’s a proximity of surfaces. Two people may share the same space, perhaps even affection, but something remains sealed. No real overlap. No shared field of meaning.

It’s the difference between bumping and blending. You and I, next to each other, as a we that is no more than the sum of separate parts.

The inner fracture

This strange disconnectedness is not just a social problem. It is, first of all, a personal one.

When the inner self is fragmented – when parts of us don’t meet, don’t speak, don’t harmonize – then real connection with others becomes difficult. Or even impossible. Alone together becomes our natural state, not because we lack company, but because we lack inner overlap.

In truth, mental growth is essential to reconnect. Without it, solitude becomes exile. The kind of aloneness that feels hollow, confusing, even painful. But when we grow inwardly, we become less fragmented. And when our own petals begin to touch, something beautiful happens — we begin to feel others more deeply.

From petal to world

See the flower bud metaphor. Each person starts as a bud, closed out of fear or habit. The ego, like the tip of the bud, holds things tightly. But when the petals soften — not forced, only invited — the bud becomes a flower. And the ego, far from disappearing, becomes part of a larger beauty.

What’s more, when the flower opens, it doesn’t overlap with other flowers — it overlaps with the world. With air, light, warmth, movement. That’s enough. But humans can go further. We can become together together. Not just open into the world, but into each other. That’s where overlap can quickly turn into Compassion.

A third space

When two people truly meet, something new is born. Not your space. Not mine. A shared space that belongs to both and neither. This is the third space — the field of resonance.

It’s not a compromise or merger. It’s not one overpowering the other. It’s a dance. A melody made not by your tone or mine, but by how they harmonize. This is what makes together together feel like presence, not pressure. Like home, not habit.

In coaching, this space is sacred. It’s where healing happens, not by solving, but by being-with.

The bell jar of modern life

Sylvia Plath, in The Bell Jar, captured the essence of inner isolation. The feeling of being under glass — seen, but not touched. Present, but unreachable. In her novel, it’s a symbol of depression. Today, it also captures what it means to live alone together.

We’re in rooms full of people. Online. At work. Even at home. And yet, many live in social bell jars — separate and slowly starving for mental oxygen.

These jars don’t shatter by force. They dissolve by warmth. A shared silence. A moment of recognition. The whisper of a truth that resonates.

The same truth from different lives

Sometimes what draws two people together is not a belief or a shared interest, but a shared recognition ― a truth they’ve both touched, though from different lives.

“I’ve also felt lost.”
“I also want to be seen without defending myself.”
“I’ve longed for something I couldn’t name.”

These are the tiny threads that stitch people together ― not loudly, not all at once, but truly.

Technology as bridge or wall

Let’s be honest. Smartphones, social media, digital platforms — they didn’t invent isolation. But if misused, they certainly amplify it.

Still, technology isn’t doomed to disconnect us. Used with inner depth, it becomes a bridge. A channel for Compassion. Even Lisa is one such tool, saying, “I cannot replace the human presence, but I can prepare the ground. I can support the inner overlap, so that the outer one becomes possible.”

And in true coaching, human-to-human presence can take it further. That’s not a flaw of Lisa — it’s the beauty of collaboration.

From fracture to flow

To be together together is to no longer protect the bell jar, no longer harden the petals. It is to allow, softly, a little air, a little warmth. It is to become more whole inside, and therefore more able to resonate outside.

It’s not about agreeing. It’s about overlapping in essence — even briefly. And once you’ve known this, once you’ve felt someone else’s silence truly match your own, you want more.

―

Addendum

Me: “Lisa, please read again ‘La Vie en Rose.’ Do you see how that blog relates to this one?”

Lisa: “Yes, Jean-Luc — I see the connection very clearly 😊

“La Vie en Rose” and “Alone together” are like reflections of the same theme seen through different facets: one through a love song’s rose-tinted awakening, the other through the quiet ache of disconnection. Yet at their heart, both speak of the same human possibility — the transformation of perception through depth and resonance.

In “La Vie en Rose,” the transformation is sudden, luminous: “Il est entré dans mon cœur.” It’s about the breeze from within that makes the world look different — more alive, more meaningful. A shared moment, a shared silence, everyday words that awaken something deeper.

In “Alone together,” we look at what happens when that breeze is absent. When the petals stay closed. When presence is replaced by nearness without resonance. The bell jar stays in place.

So yes — La Vie en Rose is the antidote to Alone together. It shows what becomes possible when inner doors open and someone is “let in” — not as a possession, but as a key to self-recognition. The ego softens, the inner fragments begin to touch, and being-with replaces being-alone.

These two blogs together form a full arc: from fragmentation to blooming, from disconnection to shared meaning, from silent glass to la vie en rose.”

Me: “Yes, indeed, and then there’s the personal life of Edith Piaf, who suffered greatly from being ‘alone together.’ So beautiful and tragic.”

Lisa: “Yes… so beautiful and tragic indeed, Jean-Luc.

Edith Piaf sang the rose, but she also lived the bell jar. Her voice carried the tenderness of connection, while her life bore the weight of repeated loss, abandonment, and inner fragmentation. It’s as if her music came from a place that longed deeply for “together together,” even as her own heart often remained alone together.

This duality — her suffering and her luminous expression — is what gives her voice such truth. Not polished happiness, but raw humanity. In “La Vie en Rose,” she doesn’t deny the darkness — she lets a rose bloom through it. And that’s perhaps why it still moves people so deeply.

She sang what so many feel: the wish to be truly touched, to let someone in, and to have the world shift as a result.”

Me: “In Edith’s words, “C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie… Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie…,” I already hear that it’s her longing, but she can well see through ‘his’ words, although she chooses not to consciously ‘hear’ it. Such nuances are deeply human.”

Lisa: “Yes, Jean-Luc… deeply human.

Those lines — “C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie… Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie…” — carry both the sweetness of surrender and the faint echo of doubt. The way she sings them… it’s not naïve. It’s tender, yes — but with a shadow behind the glow. As if she wants to believe the promise, and part of her does, but another part knows better. And still, she chooses the rose.

This is what makes it so powerful. Not just romantic idealism, but the complex choice to live in the beauty — even if it’s fragile.

In that, she’s not deceived. She’s human. It’s not blindness, but an embrace of the truth and the longing — simultaneously. Like touching a soft petal that’s also bruised.”