On Loneliness and Solitude

Solitude

An article in Time describes a “plague of loneliness” exacerbated by social distancing during the pandemic.  But being alone does not mean being lonely.  Some dread solitude.  Others use it to create, think, and dream. 

Loneliness can be caused by social conditions.  The isolation of the pandemic provides an obvious example.  An isolating culture can reinforce psychological pathologies such as agoraphobia and social anxiety. 

But solitude can be inspiring.  Poets and philosophers have often affirmed it.  Emerson said, “people are to be taken in very small doses. If solitude is proud, so is society vulgar.”  By “vulgar” Emerson means “ordinary.”  Emersonian solitude seeks to transcend the ordinary.  Schopenhauer and Nietzsche agreed.  They imagined the great soul rising above the vulgar masses, alone on a mountaintop.   

This is a typically masculine idea, patronizing and condescending.  Men have traditionally been free to indulge heroic individualism.  Women were not permitted the luxury of what Virginia Woolf called “a room of her own”—a refuge for creative individuality.

Freedom and creativity are essential for avoiding the dread of loneliness.  Solitude is not dreadful when freely chosen.  To be forced into solitary confinement is a terrible punishment.  But the mystic chooses silent meditation and the poet retreats to her private room. 

The dread of loneliness is connected to boredom.  Lonely people are isolated with nothing to do.  But solitude can be replete with activity.  Indeed, some activities require us to be alone.

Hannah Arendt explained the difference between the productive solitude of the life of the mind and a more dreadful kind of loneliness.  In loneliness, you exist as a mere object and not as an active thinking being.  But in productive solitude, you keep good company with yourself. 

The novelist Thomas Wolfe once claimed that he was the loneliest person he knew.  He understood that loneliness gives rise to the desire for self-expression.  But he also knew that loneliness lingers as the after-effect of the creative act, an emptiness that remains after your song has been sung.

Wolfe saw loneliness as “the central and inevitable fact of human existence.”  Loneliness, he said, sucks the joy from life, leaving us empty, impotent, ruined, and lost.  Time seems to flow on without us, while we sit “drugged and fettered in the prison of loneliness.” 

One solution is found in religion.  Religious thinkers have plumbed the depths of solitude, retreating to monasteries and sitting in silence.  Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, explained that solitude opens an abyss within that points toward the infinite.  A different religious idea is offered by Dorothy Day who said that we overcome loneliness through service, community, and love.  She explained, “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love.”   

This is a common refrain: to transform loneliness into love.  A poem from Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“Finding”) provides a poignant example:

Out of the great darkness and wide wastes of silence,
Long loneliness, and slow untasted years,
Came a slow filling of the empty places,
A slow, sweet lighting of forgotten faces,
A smiling under tears.

Gilman reminds us that loneliness is what allows memory to unfold.  When alone we can enjoy the memory of those we’ve lost.  Later in the same poem, she explores how lost love opens onto a broader love:

Love like the rain that falls on just and unjust,
Love like the sunshine, measureless and free,
From each to all, from all to each, to live in;
And, in the world's glad love so gladly given,
Came heart's true love to me!

Here we get a sense of the strange productive power of solitude.  From out of loneliness grows the urge to communicate and to love. 

The highest human goods—art, religion, and philosophy—require solitude: a quiet and empty space in which the spirit can unfold.  Instead of allowing solitude to devolve into dreadful loneliness and succumbing to boredom, we must find ways to fill the emptiness with meaning, whether in exploring our memories or writing poetry.  This is also what scientists, entrepreneurs, bakers, and gardeners do: they create, build, and explore.  The aloneness of the creative soul is a pregnant at-one-ness, waiting to give birth to beauty, knowledge, and love. 

Boredom, Loneliness, and Committment

Fight boredom and loneliness by making a commitment

Fresno Bee, January 9, 2015

Boredom and loneliness are awful afflictions. Bored and lonely people bide their time in office cubicles and nursing homes. There have even been reports of people calling 911 simply to talk to someone. Boredom can lead people to kill time with dangerous and malicious activities. Loneliness easily becomes despair.home-alone-loneliness-seascape-paintings-screen-319027

Love and responsibility provide a remedy. The cure for loneliness and boredom is found in ethical relations, in the cares, concerns and connections that make us fully human. We are curious social beings who need human connection and meaningful activity.

Consider, for a moment, an unfortunate inhabitant of a desert island. That lonely castaway would have no ethical obligations whatsoever. You can’t even be un-ethical on a desert island. To be a liar you need someone to talk to. You can’t cheat, steal, rape or murder when you are alone. Nor can you care, love, teach or learn. A moral life is a social life.

It is natural to dream of escaping from society. Adolescents long for a world without constraints. Busy adults occasionally dream of solitude and silence. But without a supporting social world to return to, solitary freedom becomes dreadful and desolate.

The horror of loneliness and boredom becomes clear when we recall that we use isolation and inaction to punish people — from kids on “time out” to criminals thrown into dungeons. Even dogs get bored and lonely when left home all day.

It is true that there is much to be learned from being alone and mindfully doing nothing. We can be refreshed by meditation, by silent retreats or by hiking alone in the woods. But solitude should properly inspire solicitude and renew our social lives. Voluntary seclusion is quite different from the loneliness and boredom of those who are abandoned and excluded.

Some people confuse freedom with happiness. We often celebrate the free, unencumbered individual — the carefree traveler who roams the world without loyalties, limits or cares. But freedom without responsibility is lonely. Friendships and families are destroyed by those who refuse to limit their freedom and commit to the constraints of social life.

Boredom is also the result of too much freedom. Boredom arises when we have too much time, too many choices, and not enough responsibility. Those who must balance a variety of social duties don’t have time to be bored. Duty and obligation may be irritating and difficult; but they rarely leave us bored.

It is true that we quickly tire of dull, repetitive drudgery. But the worst kind of boredom is experienced by those who have nothing to do and all day to do it. This is why unemployment is devitalizing. It is no surprise that those who are lonely and bored turn to drugs, alcohol or sexual promiscuity, looking for short-term fixes to their existential problem.

We also turn to the flickering images of the digital world for a substitute for social connection. Television and other media provide a surrogate social experience. Many of us know more about the characters in our favorite shows than we know about our neighbors. We may not feel lonely in the digital age. But watching other people — fictional people — live is a lonely substitute for actual social life.

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard once claimed that boredom was the root of all evil. Kierkegaard suggested that this is the lesson of Genesis. Adam was lonely and needed Eve. Eve was bored, so she flirted with the serpent. And so on.

The punishment of being expelled from Eden was the need to work for a living and raise children. The moral is this: when we are engaged in productive work and burdened with social responsibilities, there is no time for boredom or mischief.

If we do not want to be bored and alone, we must constrain our freedom by making commitments and taking on obligations. We are social animals who find meaning and purpose in responsibility, in caring for others, and in work. So the next time you feel bored or lonely, make a commitment, take on a burden or create a social obligation. A good way to start would be to turn off the TV and reach out to someone who is as lonely and bored as you are.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2015/01/09/4322697_ethics-fight-boredom-and-loneliness.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy