This post is about solitude.
I was asked to write about one of three topics, in the casual "I'd like to hear your take" sort of way, and that's the one that stuck with me. In part, it was more evocative than the others, and more rarely discussed besides. In part, it's because it's an area of expertise.
That's not (primarily) self-deprecatory, because I didn't write "loneliness," or "isolation," which are often conflated these days with "being alone." Solitude is, qualitatively if not quantitatively, different to those previous options with negative connotations. If anything, there's a scholarly veneer to the common sense, in my mind: trudging off to a cabin in the middle of nowhere is solitudinous. Maybe lonely, too, but that comes second.
Thinking of "loneliness" and "the state of being alone" as distinct is a) something that comes mostly naturally to me and b) makes it feel like less of a dunk to be asked to write about the latter.
The differentiation exists, for me, in large part because I don't really enjoy conversation and I don't much like being in the same space, as a matter of course. That's a generalization with some exceptions, but I want to note it up front because there's a decent chance you are very different from me in this way. And if you are, my perspective will seem, perhaps, a little alien, and that may be the reason why.
With that said, solitude is overdone.
The Internet Introvert decries the media championing extroversion, that it doesn't pattern-match to everyone's life. The jealous journalist writes columns about retreating, regrouping, as if there's some war being waged to which the audience isn't —can't be— privy. Solitude is imposed by various authorities to various extents, with various excuses, in favor of various causes.
I don't relate much, intrinsically, to the "humans are social animals" crowd. But they're right, to an extent. I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't want to share how I feel. We're on the Internet, where the pretense of shared presence is commodified, in large part because it makes that presence easier. It just changes it. "Just."
If you're out and about, you're not the exception, I think, but it's trending that way. That's a change. It's worrying. Solitude does things to people. It's one of the more severe punishments that's routinely imposed on prisoners, sanctioned by law.
People do things to people, sure. But we know what those things are, more or less. We have names for them in our textbooks and history books. If we study solitude, well, we have to turn to biology. It's my belief that solitude has taken off, worldwide, because the lonely see themselves as temporarily embarrassed leaders. In the best case. In the worse cases, that self-belief is inability.
There's virtue in being alone, yeah.
There's virtue in being with family, or with friends, or with strangers. There's virtue in most things, and vice in the same, and the quality and quantity of such tips as the balance between them does. Tinctures, all. Concentrated feeling dissolved into time and space, as whatever calculus you cherish continues to unfold.
I like being alone, at least more than most people. Maybe that's because, unlike some, I don't have a voice in my head I can't control, or an intrinsic inability to function when sitting in a room by myself with no one else around.
And then again, with these self-assessments, on my own, I do fill time. I write these. I read more. I listen to music regularly, and to recordings of others more often. I have short conversations with imagined other people, and talk through what I might say were we ever to meet. So there's a reaching-out, and when I consider making that a few-hundred-percent more potent, the behavior of the party-types makes a lot more sense.
The primary thing that solitude does is separate. Then it concentrates. It makes you more 'you,' at least up in your head. Because the influences that you're taking in are all intentional, never spontaneous. It's like playing chess against yourself, right? You can't really lose, at least not in a way that's satisfying, because you know, always, what the other person is thinking. Unless you're bad enough to surprise yourself with a move you didn't see coming, and I'd think —I hope— that most of us can follow our own thoughts long enough that that can't happen.
I'm not very good at talking to people. When I say that, I mean "Instrumentally, I'm subpar at talking to people," which in turn gets at "I'm pretty bad at the feedback loop of conversation that involves 'acting, reacting, judging' in a way that accomplishes much." My high school yearbook had a number of 'superlatives,' which were voted on. I won three, I think, though they were each shared with two or three other people, and relative to some schools, my class was small.
These were 'talks least, says most,' 'most underrated,' and 'best snapchat stories.'
The snapchat one, I owe to the occasional funny post. The underrated one, I have a disagreement with, because by winning an award named as such, I'd think I'm —by definition, almost— properly rated. 'Talks least, says most,' I can't quibble with, except that I don't think I said the most, or talked the least. But what I said was dense. I made a lot of jokes. I made a lot of bad jokes. I said a number of 'deep' things. Relative to the average high-schooler, that is, though I think those traits carry forward.
When I talk, it's to talk, and I don't like talking much, so I don't do it. That's a cycle of sorts.
It's not ideal, and I enjoy some discussions, and there are the obvious reasons besides my personal, immediate preference to say 'yes' to opportunities to converse. 'Zero' feels natural, but I extend that to 'a few,' but that's still a relatively small number. I could stand to practice more, even should, but it's kind of awkward to have a less-than-ideal grasp on the right words in the right timeframe. I disappoint some interlocutors because of that, I think.
Which is stupid on a number of levels, but that's the kind of habit solitude creates and reinforces. It's not 'wrong' in any special ways, but it's a consequence of strengthening predispositions.
I don't think I'm alone in that, which is more than a little ironic.
There's a lot to get away from, nowadays. There are a lot of reasons to reach out. A person needs balance, and society valorizes tilting between extremes. Which is a sort of balance, but one few people are optimized for, and one for which fewer should be.
I often think in terms of physical analogy. Some people like their backs to walls, or take long strides to press forward against the wind. That kind of thing.
Solitude, in that way, looks very much like it feels like. It's a presence defined by a void, like a noun defined by its verb —a runner, a driver, a biker— even when its adherents attempt to flip that causal arrow. Hermit. Recluse. You can dress it up with fanciful or disparaging language, and the thing isn't changed, when most activities would be. Because it's absence, at its core. It doesn't interact with anything, so it can't be altered by description. Everyone knows it, everyone does it.
We're all, sometimes, alone. Not enough. Too often.
You know what it feels like just as I do, though it's filtered through trends in experience.
Better to push against 'solitude,' if you don't like it, than to fall into that state inadvertently. If to be alone is comfortable, my opinion's more or less the same. Better to push against 'being alone' than not to, at least every so often, with an open mind. Because the other way around is easier and easier, in a way that you might not intend.
That's my take, roughly.
I wrote this one more conversationally than I'd have liked to, maybe, but I think it fits. If you disagree, let me know; if you're dubious that this is casual: hi, hello, let's chat.
The next three posts are going to be 1) book review, 2)-3) two of [worldbuilding notes, more poetry, updates/links/best-of, another post like this one, predictions, etc.]
Best
Orion