Solitude Is Not Sickness
When some people hear about where I live, I’m always a little surprised at the comments they make about my living in an isolated fashion. Their underlying belief is clear: isolation is unhealthy.
Human beings are social animals, and most every great thing we have produced resulted from collaboration. One person cannot save the world, no matter how much we like the hero archetype. It is undeniable that social interaction lies at the core of who we are as a species.
We are hard-wired to crave company.
But why all the concern? Why do some people view isolation as indicative of someone stumbling towards peril? Maybe they are worried about someone they care for, or maybe they have experienced the loss of a person who exhibited this behavior. After all, people are adept at generalizing and projecting their personal experiences onto the behaviors of others. But, I think people’s primary concern about someone being alone is that they themselves feel lonely when they are away from others.
With our craving for social interaction comes an inherent fear of being alone. Mother Nature understood that humans had the best chance for survival if they worked as a group, so evolution made quick work of instilling within us an affinity toward group behavior and an aversion to being alone. In modern times, although we still rely heavily on the goods and services others provide, our survival requires much less personal contact with others. Modern humans also value independence and self-sufficiency, something that was more of a luxury in times past. Individuals also experience an interesting phenomenon of enmeshment where they closely tie their identity to a group, making them feel like they lose their personal identity when alone. With these strong internal programs that keep us social, it’s no wonder that we avoid a pursuit of solitude.
These modern challenges merit the question of whether all, or even most, social interaction is healthy. While some forms of separation from society are obviously a symptom of some greater issue, sometimes people are overly social because it helps them evade something negative they experience when they are alone.
For me, it is this running toward one thing in order to escape another that is the hallmark of unhealthy behavior. Solitude, however, is not a negative practice.
Time spent alone might even be an important part of self-actualization that will allow one to become a stronger member of the group, thus strengthening society. I believe that some people just don’t know how to be alone and they have not experienced the benefits of confronting and taming one’s most common and debilitating enemy: oneself.
You’ve probably heard it dozens of times. Whether reading a biography, seeing a news report, or watching your favorite reality TV survival competition, many people report the worst thing about being alone is being alone with your own thoughts. There is a strange sound to this paradox, that we should spend our whole lives being ourselves, perceiving ourselves as individuals, and then when we are stuck alone out in the wilderness or some unknown environment, we suddenly see our own mind as a stranger and perhaps even a foe.
We evolved to perceive ourselves as individuals while having an affinity to being a part of a group. But time and time again, we encounter stories that reveal that while people perceive themselves as strongly independent, most of us never realize how important others are in the formation of our individual identities. While it makes sense that a communal group of mammals would develop this type of psychology, it makes me wonder why nature carved out these dissonant parts of our psyche.
Perhaps self-identity is an old trait that was harming our species, so nature formed a solid group psychology that was subtle, and our feeling of individuality is a type of cognitive illusion. Or maybe self-identity has become more important in modern life, and we are just now learning to break away from group behavior. Whatever the case, we should know much of what we consider to be the self is actually a multifaceted construct taken from different groups on various levels of our experience. Breaking away from those parts can be a painful and scary process, but it is the only bridge to cross from where we are now to where we want to go.
Solitude provides an opportunity to confront our minds.
While stories of people forced into isolation shed light on our lack of self-sufficiency and self-understanding, some cultures have long viewed these responses as both a lack of growth and an opportunity for self-development. For centuries, Buddhist monks have purposely isolated themselves, some for years or even decades, because they understood the value of observing one’s mind and confronting it head on. Many cultures who practice self-isolation also have a rich history of promoting positive qualities like compassion, equality, and wisdom. These cultures teach us that to be a better contributor to the group, you first have to abandon it, and undergo some process that teaches one to “know thyself”. They point to a direct connection between improving society and developing oneself.
When I first moved out to the woods, I picked up a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s popular book, Walden, and read several Thoreau biographies. While the book is undeniably rich in content, it surprised me to see how several critics seem to penalize Thoreau for writing a book on the benefits of isolation. Their main grievance was that Thoreau lived on a property, owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson, that was relatively close to the city. Thoreau visited his family regularly, enjoying meals with them, and received several guests at his small home on Walden Pond. Yet, reading Walden leaves one with the indisputable evidence of a man changed by his willingness to confront the nature both within and outside of himself. For me, Thoreau’s experiment gives us all access to the benefits of solitude without requiring us to disappear into remoteness.
Thoreau showed us, by literal and literary example, that we can confront our ourselves right from where we are. Solitude is not about abandoning, it is about disconnecting. It is stepping away from others and waking up to the ironic truth that exiting society, even for short periods, creates the space we need to look inward. It is this ability to self-observe while we are away from others that allows us to see who we really are. And in this process of self-reflection, we understand it is not society that we have left behind. We have unknowingly stifled our own power to live, create, and better contribute to civilization.
Whatever your circumstances, I encourage you to examine your inner self by venturing out and exploring the world around you. Take some time to get away from society and spend some time alone. Whether you step into the forest or sit on your front stoop, you can take some time to listen to your surroundings, observe yourself, and see what nature reveals. Stripping everything away can be scary. But is seems irrational that we would avoid doing so whenever it is the only path to self-improvement and positive change. Sometimes, the doors we most fear open up to the things we most want and need.