Solitude is an idea that has captured my mind in recent years, and I imagine I am not alone in such thoughts. If someone told me when I was a few years younger that he liked to spend a good amount of their time alone, my thoughts on hearing this would probably have fallen somewhere on the kindness spectrum close to “loser.” Today, I understand fully why some people would prefer to spend much of their time alone. In fact, the idea of being alone later in life has evolved from being utterly terrifying to perhaps tolerable. However, this deserves some further clarification.
Today, thinking about living alone no longer causes me to shudder. However, this represents a strange sensation that I feel almost inclined to resist. Even though I am overall a very social person who enjoys spending time with others, and especially with those I love, the idea of spending long periods of time in solitude seems to always creep into my mind. For example, this past summer my family and I travelled to Germany and spent a day island hopping on the most spectacular lake I have ever seen. If I were asked, and had the ability, to paint the purely picturesque, my canvas would glow with the beauty of this crystal lake, dotted with sailboats, a few small islands, and with the Alps on the horizon. While you are there, your mind flows to a mysterious era in the past, with castles and knights, while the beauty of the water washes away all the dark reality of this era, and leaves you behind, engulfed in the land of fairy tales. While I was there, I found myself planning my retirement at the very appropriate age of 18. I saw myself living in a house on this wonderful lake and spending my days at ease while fishing and learning to sail. To be fair to my social side, I relished the idea of making frequent incursions into equally picturesque towns nearby and to Munich, which was just an hour away. However, to my surprise, I didn’t immediately imagine myself with a wife or a family there with me, which shocked because I hope to have a family but something in my subconscious had slipped in the idea of living blissfully alone on those mystical shores. Perhaps because I was thinking as an 18 year old, I was incapable of imagining yourself at a more advanced age. Nonetheless, this experience, combined with my growing appreciation of alone time, forced me to contemplate more how I truly felt about solitude.
On my way back to Munich, I found myself fantasizing about what that life would be like, but even then I felt the cruelty of reality creeping steadily into my mind. I began to wonder whether I should spend my life alone, and this drove me to think about one of the ideas Samuel Johnson presents in his essay on solitude. He suggests that for a virtuous man to retreat from society would be wrong because he would take with him all the potential good he could do. I should make it very clear that I do not consider myself to be especially virtuous, but I hope to be someday. I believe the impact I might make on society could be very positive, especially if I had the resources which would allow me to live on that lake alone. This idea may seem strange, but can be backed up by research. In a New Yorker article about the growing popularity of living alone, Nathan Heller cites a study done by Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam. Putnam’s research shows a consistent decrease in “civic participation” and group involvement within society (Heller). This participation, and the general interest in the well-being of society that inspires it, is threatened by the increasing tendency towards solitude according to Heller. This suggests that chosen solitude in the long term is typically a selfish aspiration. By choosing to be on your own you are choosing to focus solely on your own goals, to connect less with others, and to be less available to help others when the opportunity presents itself. This was the first strain of reality that stood in the way of my initial retirement plans. Reluctantly I began to realize that a life without a care in the world was not ideal but rather ignorant. To achieve such an existence would mean I would be forced to ignore the plight of so many I could at least try to help. That was not the man I wanted to be. That did not equal the beauty I had imagined on that lake. Consequently, permanent solitude began to seem almost like a destructive high; I needed to distance myself from it no matter how much I preferred not to. Not surprisingly, Samuel Johnson was so far ahead of me when he so strangely and wisely suggested that solitude is never quite what we initially imagined it would be.
Now I should stop here briefly to address the question that I am sure at least a few of you are thinking about: what about monks and nuns, are they not righteous individuals? The simple answer is yes, which might suggest that solitude can indeed be holy, but I think you will see this is not exactly the case. First of all, monks and nuns live in groups at monasteries and, therefore, do not live in complete solitude. This means that the goodness and selflessness of one monastic can have a positive impact on all of their brothers and sisters in the monastery. In fact, these good deeds for one another define many of the great monastics. Also, it is important to remember that the primary goal of monasticism is not to live alone. The goal is to devote oneself entirely to the spiritual, and that may necessitate distancing oneself from the secular world. However, it does not mean monks and nuns must remain forever separate from this world. In fact, many monasteries can be places of refuge for the poor and desolate of local communities. The bottom line is, monastics do not live in the kind of solitude Samuel Johnson criticizes. Instead they live in groups where they devote themselves to God, each other, and others in need.
Despite the creeping of reality, I was not quite ready to accept solitude as worthless. Part of my growing positive views about solitude stem from positive results I have attained from being alone. For example, I have grown spiritually as a result of some of my contemplations in solitude as well as more secure with who I am. However, these were the result of mere hours spent alone, never prolonged periods of weeks or even days. According to a Huffington Post article about the benefits of solitude, many believe that spending some time alone can yield several positive results (Gregoire). Among these results are a surge in creativity, the ability to relax and step away from the chaos, the opportunity to reflect, and an increase in self-esteem. As before mentioned, these are benefits that I have experienced very clearly in my own life and it has led me to believe that spending periods of time in solitude can yield positive results. However, in my opinion the ultimate goal of seeking spiritual and emotional growth and stability should be in order to make yourself not only more comfortable with who you are, but also more able to help others. Consequently, I suppose solitude to be positive in moderation, with too much being damaging, like so many things.
However, even though I now have a better understanding about this side of solitude, I still haven’t gone back to the idea of whether I actually want to spend periods of my life alone. When I think of solitude, I think of the ability to be exactly who I am and want to be without the fear of what others will think. This feeling can serve to help me recharge, as the Huffington Post article suggests, and helps to spur on my spiritual growth. But this tends to be the case only when I am alone by choice. When I find myself alone when I would prefer not to be, I often wish I were with others or more occupied with work. During the holidays, my family and I spend at least a week in Richmond, Virginia. In that house, there is a sort of haven for me in a room separated from the rest by three steps and a pair of doors. On holiday mornings, I enjoy sitting in this room with some blankets while watching some tacky Christmas specials absent judging eyes. Granted, I am kept in company with the characters on these specials. But I still feel alone, a world away from anyone behind that screen. I love this time of day and I love reconnecting with who I am in peace. However, this experience would be non-existent if I didn’t know I could open those doors and find my parents reading in the next room, or if I didn’t know we would all be gathered in that same room later in the night to watch slightly less tacky movies. Perhaps people with far greater strength than me can find benefit in all types of solitude, but for me the element of knowing I don’t have to be alone is essential. In fact, this represents the essence of solitude for me. It is the ability to be alone by choice and for a particular reason. Anything else is either loneliness or introversion.
Now when I think about that lake in Bavaria, nothing is as simple as it once was. I no longer imagine the simplicity of a life spent fishing and sailing without a care in the world. Rather, I wonder whether this is how I should spend the precious few days I have on Earth, or whether I would feel the sharp sting of loneliness along those shores. This beautiful dream, so simple and so unexplained, can live on in my imagination but not in the real world. On the one hand this is sad, but on the other it is not. After all, on one level we all wish fairy tales were true but, on another, we are not sad the big bad wolf does not actually roam the earth. Similarly, we all yearn for the beauty of solitude but are foolish if we don’t recognize its consequences. While I may relish my time spent on that distant shore, at the end of my life would I really be satisfied with only an ability to fish and to sail? The answer is obvious for me, but that may be more of a flaw in my character than anything else. Solitude is different for me than it is for you, and though I have tried and failed to explain what it means to me, its conception in my mind has found a more concrete form.
Works Cited
Gregoire, Carolyn. “Being Alone: 7 Reasons Solitude Can Be Good For You.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.
Heller, Nathan. “The Disconnect – The New Yorker.” The New Yorker. N.p., 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.
Johnson, Samuel. “The Solitude of the Country.” Comp. Phillip Lopate. The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. New York: Anchor, 1994. N. pag. Print.