Many of us dread being alone. We find isolation uncomfortable or downright scary. If you want to know just how eager we are to avoid it, consider a scientific study that offered people a choice between giving themselves electric shocks or being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. Believe it or not, many chose the electric shocks.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the good news: Being alone is a skill. And, just like any other skill, you can get better at it with practice. I want to suggest that honing this skill now can help you get through this pandemic winter. Instead of dreading being alone, you can lean into it.<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re skipping holidays with your family in an effort to contain the current coronavirus surge, or quarantined in your room because you have Covid-19, you\u2019ve probably felt at least a momentary surge of panic at the idea of being physically cut off from your loved ones for days or weeks or months. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a reasonable feeling: Social distancing is brutal. Full stop. Human beings have evolved over thousands of years to take comfort in one another\u2019s presence, so when we\u2019re isolated, it hurts us on a physiological level. <\/p>\n
At the same time, we can probably recognize that some of our fear about being alone is not unique to the current pandemic. It\u2019s a fear that has lurked in us for years, as we\u2019ve forgotten \u2014 or perhaps never really learned \u2014 how to sit with ourselves, including with our uncomfortable thoughts and emotions. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think most of us are afraid to be alone with ourselves because getting to know ourselves is a very fearsome process,\u201d Jack Fong, a sociologist who researches solitude at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, told me. To keep this fear at bay, lots of us have a podcast or TV show constantly playing in the background, or a rotation of friends we call one after another.<\/p>\n
Many factors have conspired to make us bad at solitude. They\u2019re mostly not our fault. As Jenny Odell lays out in her book How to Do Nothing<\/em>, we live in a culture where sociability and constant connectivity are rewarded, and where choosing to be by yourself marks you out as a loser, crazy, possibly immoral. <\/p>\n And when we do find ourselves alone, we\u2019re increasingly at the mercy of an attention economy that bombards us with ever-present, ever-pleasant distractions. With external stimulation always just a click away, it\u2019s never been so easy to avoid our inner worlds. Why would you sit with a feeling like boredom or sadness if you can distract yourself from it by texting a friend, or bingeing a Netflix show, or launching a Zoom call?<\/p>\n And indeed, these technologies are the salves everyone seems to be proposing for pandemic-induced loneliness. Don\u2019t get me wrong: They can be genuinely useful. Like I said, loneliness hurts us physically as well as mentally. I live alone, so to stay sane, I\u2019ve engaged in my fair share of Zoom dance parties.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, these fixes feel unsatisfying because they\u2019re all about how to avoid being alone instead of just, well, being alone. And that avoidance stands to make us even more scared of our solitude. Decades of psychology research have taught us that trying to escape a distressing emotion is a bad long-term strategy; it teaches our brain that we can\u2019t handle that emotion, and our distress actually grows more intense.<\/p>\n So how can we use this opportunity not to escape solitude but to lean into it? We can learn from people who figured out how to do this long before the coronavirus came knocking.<\/p>\n What we can learn from survivors of solitary confinement<\/p>\n For starters, we need to distinguish between voluntary solitude and enforced solitude. Plenty of people who\u2019ve experimented with the former \u2014 hermits and monks, philosophers and artists \u2014 have worthwhile lessons to teach us about being alone. But it\u2019s people in the latter category whose experience is most instructive for us now.<\/p>\n Consider what Keith LaMar, who\u2019s been in solitary confinement in a supermax prison for 27 years, recently told Mother Jones. I want to be clear that I think solitary confinement is a form of torture that should be abolished, and it makes our self-enforced, tech-enabled isolation look like a walk in the park. There is simply no comparing the two. <\/p>\n Yet LaMar \u2014 as well as Jason Rezaian, a journalist who survived solitary confinement in an Iranian prison \u2014 have discussed their experiences in the context of the wide-scale quarantining going on now, in an effort to help us through this period. So let\u2019s consider LaMar\u2019s insights: <\/p>\n Being in solitary confinement is really just being thrown upon yourself: You\u2019re running around, just like people do in your regular life, and now all of a sudden you\u2019re confronted with yourself, and find that in a lot of cases you haven\u2019t really put anything into yourself to occupy yourself. Everything is outward directed. That\u2019s what happened to me 27 years ago, and what happens to a lot of guys who are initially thrown into this situation \u2014 it\u2019s like being thrown into the ocean. You have to learn how to swim. You have to learn how to deal with yourself.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been lucky in a lot of ways. My cell has a bookshelf with three shelves, and there\u2019s a table to sit and write. I have a lot of music, books to read. Not to distract myself from myself, but to take me deeper into myself. I paint, I work out, I do yoga, I meditate.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve watched quite a few people fall apart, lose their minds. But I went in another direction. So 27 years later I\u2019m still sound in mind and body and spirit. I attribute that to just reading and cultivating myself. That\u2019s the thing, when you\u2019re thrown upon yourself, you realize you are more equipped than you realized. A lot of the system keeps us from realizing our own power. It\u2019s a good opportunity for people to tap into that. \u2026 Hopefully young people being forced to stay home outside of the mainstream curriculum are able to get a glimpse of themselves and start pulling on that thread.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n There\u2019s a lot of wisdom in this perspective. In fact, it echoes many of the key observations scholars have made over the years about solitude.<\/p>\n First, there\u2019s the idea that to succeed at solitude, you have to accept that you\u2019re being \u201cthrown upon yourself\u201d \u2014 to confront your reality rather than opting for distraction. Then you have to \u201cput something into yourself\u201d \u2014 to make solitude a generative practice that takes you deeper into who you are and develops you further. <\/p>\n Matthew Bowker, a Medaille College researcher who studies solitude, says something very similar in The Handbook of Solitude<\/em>. He notes that being adept at being alone \u201cimplies the capacity to generate meaningful and valuable experiences in the internal world, for if one wishes to be<\/em> when alone and not merely to wither or starve, one must be able to generate and possess some of the vital stuff of being.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, you\u2019ve got to quit seeing solitude as an experiment in subtraction, and start seeing it as an experiment in addition. What you\u2019re adding is your self \u2014 a true self, because at last it\u2019s you who\u2019s building it, not anyone else. You\u2019re no longer looking to other people for their attention or approval. <\/p>\n The psychologist D.W. Winnicott often drew a distinction between the \u201cauthentic self\u201d and the \u201cfalse self.\u201d Without realizing it, he said, we look to other people to scaffold our sense of who we are. It\u2019s they who perform the construction of our identity. When we\u2019re alone \u2014 when their judgments and preferences are no longer there to shape our self-concept \u2014 it tends to break down. That can be terrifying. But it can also be a gift. Because when the false self falls away, it leaves space for you to build a more authentic self. <\/p>\n What we can learn from people who pretend to live on Mars<\/p>\n Another key ingredient to successful solitude, psychologists have found, is having a clear sense of purpose. <\/p>\n Steve Cole, a researcher at the University of California Los Angeles, studies interventions designed to help people cope with loneliness. He\u2019s found that the ones that work tend to focus not on decreasing loneliness but on increasing people\u2019s sense of purpose. Recalling one pilot program that paired isolated older people with elementary school kids whom they\u2019re asked to tutor and look out for, Cole told Vox, \u201cSecretly, this is an intervention for the older people.\u201d <\/p>\n Philosophers have also noted the fortifying effects of a clear sense of purpose. \u201cNietzsche said if you find purpose in your suffering, you can tolerate all the pain that comes with it,\u201d Fong, the sociologist, told me. \u201cIt\u2019s when people don\u2019t see a purpose in their suffering that they freak out.\u201d <\/p>\n In 2003, Kate Greene moved into a geodesic dome on top of a Hawaiian volcano, where she spent four months pretending to be an astronaut on Mars. NASA funded the experiment because it needs to know how human beings deal with isolation, so that real missions won\u2019t go kaput just because someone gets lonely. In a recent essay, Greene confesses that she had a hard time living in the dome. Separated from her loved ones and troubled by confusing information from mission support, it was hard to remember her sense of purpose. But when she did, it made all the difference, she writes:<\/p>\n Remembering that we were doing something that might be good for the future of human exploration and maybe even humanity kept me grounded when I wanted to be flying and let me fly when I felt heavy and stuck. To be part of something historic, to do something potentially grand for others \u2014 it was remarkable how focusing on that was often enough.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Billy Barr, who\u2019s been living alone in an abandoned mining shack high up in the Rocky Mountains for almost 50 years, has very similar advice. He says we should all keep track of something.<\/p>\n In his case, it\u2019s the environment. How high is the snow today? What animals appeared this month? For decades, he\u2019s been keeping track of the answers to these questions, and his records have actually had a serious influence on climate change science.<\/p>\n Now, he suggests that people in isolation get through the coronavirus pandemic by participating in a citizen science project such as CoCoRaHS, which tracks rainfall.<\/p>\n \u201cI would definitely recommend people doing that,\u201d he told WAMU. \u201cYou get a little rain gauge, put it outside and you\u2019re part of a network where there\u2019s thousands of other people doing the same thing as you, the same time of the day as you\u2019re doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n He and Greene both also emphasize the importance of routines \u2014 the little daily rituals that anchor us in time and give shape to a day.<\/p>\n The rewards \u2014 and risks \u2014 of solitude <\/p>\n Isolation has many virtues. But, harnessed incorrectly, it can also harbor danger. <\/p>\n First, the virtues. A long line of nature writers \u2014 from William Wordsworth and Henry David Thoreau to Annie Dillard and Mary Oliver \u2014 have described how solitude allows them to reconnect with nature, and through nature, a deep bliss. Many artists insist that isolation is necessary for creative work. \u201cI paint with my back to the world,\u201d said the painter Agnes Martin, because \u201cthe best things in life happen to you when you\u2019re alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Most world religions, even if they\u2019re ambivalent about solitude as a long-term path, acknowledge that it\u2019s useful for fostering spiritual insight. The Hebrew Bible says Moses spent 40 days alone on Mount Sinai before receiving the Torah. In the Roman Empire, Symeon the Stylite lived on top of a 60-foot pillar \u2014 for 37 years! Hinduism and Buddhism both have rich traditions of solitary forest dwellers. And Christianity has countless recluses; my favorite is Julian of Norwich, who at age 30 asked to be permanently shut into a cell so she could have visions of God and write about them.<\/p>\n The Trappist monk Thomas Merton and the psychologist Carl Jung both pointed out that dissociating from society allows us to perceive and call out its illusions. \u201cI am a solitary,\u201d Jung wrote, \u201cbecause I know things and must hint at things which other people do not know, and usually do not even want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra<\/em>, suggested that solitude can heal us from an overstimulating culture (\u201cFlee, my friend, into your solitude! I see you dazed by the noise of men\u201d) and reconnect us to ourselves (\u201cgo into isolation … seek the way to yourself\u201d). <\/p>\n But isolation also comes with its fair share of danger. The problem is that, as Nietzche\u2019s Zarathustra puts it, \u201cwhatever one brings into solitude grows in it, even the inner beast.\u201d That can mean anxiety, or melancholy, or some other kind of distress. For this reason, the philosopher said \u201csolitude is ill-advised\u201d for many people. <\/p>\n \u201cNietzche was prescient enough to know that solitude is a dangerous project,\u201d Fong told me. \u201cIf you are not ready for it, the cave you enter can be a very scary place. For those who have unresolved issues that may not have been attended to by a mental health expert, this may not be a good place to go.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s why psychologists typically recommend gradual exposure. If being alone is scary to you, ideally you want to seek it out in small doses first, and then \u2014 once you\u2019ve proven to your brain that it can in fact tolerate the distress \u2014 slowly increase the dose. If you\u2019re in the midst of a full-blown panic attack, that\u2019s not a good time to practice honing a new skill; you may need to first soothe the distress a bit. Engaging the senses to bring yourself back into your body is one commonly recommended way to do that (it\u2019s no coincidence that everyone on social media is now baking sourdough bread and planting fragrant herbs). <\/p>\n Unfortunately, a pandemic doesn\u2019t allow us to take the stepladder of solitude as gradually as we might like. It\u2019s not ideal, but even under these circumstances, we can build up to the skill of being alone.<\/p>\n\n
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