As someone who is very intellectually curious, and enjoys discussing ideas with others, it’s a constant battle to take time to digest what I read, in solitude. And moderate my time online. This is, of course, exacerbated by a lack of real-life opportunities for for these discussions. Even managing a small bi-weekly in-person discussion group is a huge challenge, given our collective mad-cap pace of life. Subverting the excesses of the Machine from within is not easy! But necessary.
Came here to say just this. I intentionally set aside some time recently for solitude, but ended up getting absorbed with online chatter, which in turn turned my attention back to the neverending to-do list -- precisely the thing I didn't want to do. It did indeed end up feeling rather lonely. Reading this post & opening a space for reflection and care on that habituated way of being has helped resume that original intention -- both seeing commonality with others and recommitting to that for myself as the basis of solitude. So, this is something!
I need to re-read Sertillange: I think he anticipated social media...!
“When silence takes possession of you; when far from the racket of the human highway the sacred fire flames up in the stillness; when peace, which is the tranquillity of order, puts order in your thoughts, feelings, and investigations, you are in the supreme disposition for learning; you can bring your materials together; you can create; you are definitely at your working point; it is not the moment to dwell on wretched trifles, to half live while time runs by, and to sell heaven for nothings.”
― Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods
I am glad to see this discussion of the distinction between loneliness and solitude. I find the two terms to be wildly different and often conflated.
As a person who enjoys (and requires) a fair amount of solitude, I have often been asked by friends and family, "But don't you get LONELY?"
The truth is, I do get lonely sometimes. (Don't we all?) But in my personal experience, loneliness is more often a phenomenon that occurs when around other people (whether in-person or virtually), but not able to connect with them in a meaningful way. Solitude, for me, does not result in loneliness. In fact, it feels like a safe zone from the threat of loneliness. It allows me to disengage from the social minefields and expectations that are a breeding ground for the kind of loneliness described above. Solitude can be permission to disengage from the constant barrage of connectivity of the modern age.
I find the distinction between loneliness and solitude quite similar to the distinction between boredom and pause.
This seems right to me too. I’m also reminded of the writings of Nouwen and Vanier on loneliness v. solitude, in their cases within the context of embodied communities like L’Arche.
That was a good post. Thanks. Another potential cause for the increase on loneliness I've been wondering about lately is that perhaps first adults became lonely and subjected to a disintegrating social life. Then they forgot to teach their kids how to develop relationships and become men and women of action. I think statistically it's around 2010 that teenagers stop going out and visiting their friends on a nightly basis, which reveals that we're just now getting a generation of young adults who have been almost completely nurtured in an atomized environment.
Once one turns sixteen he or she is driven into the workforce and commanded to focus on school so they can keep the social status that their parents had or move upward. At age 16 let's say, a person develops their own cocoon of interests, hobbies, and obligations that they pursue basically on their own. In the recent past it seems that people's lives were still to an extent defined by consumption, but at least that consumption took place with other people. So there was not solitude but neither was there loneliness. It's no coincidence that identity has become such an important facet of life. Everyone encases themselves apart from other people so that one feels all we have is ourselves.
I don't know, I'm just riffing.
IF YOU'RE STILL READING THIS STOP WEARING HEADPHONES OUTSIDE
The lockdowns and social distancing of the past two years served to exacerbate the “atomization” of our society, driving us all toward technological mediums. I was raised in a socially disintegrated context; a fact that is never far from mind as a parent now. I find myself seeking community intentionally with the thought to teach my kids what it looks like to have community. Yet, I can’t help feeling something about community has been lost for me. I hope my “failing forward” will be enough to give my children a start.
This post has given me pause for thought, to be more accurate many pauses for thought. I suppose it is Hannah Arendt. Hers was an intellect surfacing from the drowning horror, still caught in the surface tension. Totalitarianism? She was writing about the origins of the horror, perhaps a new form, not a matter of scale. The previous structure had gone. The old European empires, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, the Ottomans, and, though we in GB did not know it until later, the British empire. Europe had experienced full-on industrialised warfare. The Totalitarian regimes had emerged in two very different regions: one vast and still largely agrarian, and the other an advanced complex industrial economy with a working efficient Bismarckian administration. Both were taken over by pathological 'rationalities' in the so-called control room who chose to develop the machine-mind.
What was the psychology, was it personal or collective, Freudian or Jungian? How did it capture the control mechanisms of societies and infect subordinate minds? I guess the questions are relevant today for us consumers.
PS I am not going to argue with Arendt. This post sent me looking and I found her argument with Scholem after the Jerusalem trial. Two good Germans, top-intellects and Jews of course: in the background the Enlightenment (for latter see for example the surviving US Constitution). It ended in the failure of discourse. Ouch. The loneliness?
As someone who is very intellectually curious, and enjoys discussing ideas with others, it’s a constant battle to take time to digest what I read, in solitude. And moderate my time online. This is, of course, exacerbated by a lack of real-life opportunities for for these discussions. Even managing a small bi-weekly in-person discussion group is a huge challenge, given our collective mad-cap pace of life. Subverting the excesses of the Machine from within is not easy! But necessary.
Came here to say just this. I intentionally set aside some time recently for solitude, but ended up getting absorbed with online chatter, which in turn turned my attention back to the neverending to-do list -- precisely the thing I didn't want to do. It did indeed end up feeling rather lonely. Reading this post & opening a space for reflection and care on that habituated way of being has helped resume that original intention -- both seeing commonality with others and recommitting to that for myself as the basis of solitude. So, this is something!
I need to re-read Sertillange: I think he anticipated social media...!
“When silence takes possession of you; when far from the racket of the human highway the sacred fire flames up in the stillness; when peace, which is the tranquillity of order, puts order in your thoughts, feelings, and investigations, you are in the supreme disposition for learning; you can bring your materials together; you can create; you are definitely at your working point; it is not the moment to dwell on wretched trifles, to half live while time runs by, and to sell heaven for nothings.”
― Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods
I am glad to see this discussion of the distinction between loneliness and solitude. I find the two terms to be wildly different and often conflated.
As a person who enjoys (and requires) a fair amount of solitude, I have often been asked by friends and family, "But don't you get LONELY?"
The truth is, I do get lonely sometimes. (Don't we all?) But in my personal experience, loneliness is more often a phenomenon that occurs when around other people (whether in-person or virtually), but not able to connect with them in a meaningful way. Solitude, for me, does not result in loneliness. In fact, it feels like a safe zone from the threat of loneliness. It allows me to disengage from the social minefields and expectations that are a breeding ground for the kind of loneliness described above. Solitude can be permission to disengage from the constant barrage of connectivity of the modern age.
I find the distinction between loneliness and solitude quite similar to the distinction between boredom and pause.
This seems right to me too. I’m also reminded of the writings of Nouwen and Vanier on loneliness v. solitude, in their cases within the context of embodied communities like L’Arche.
That was a good post. Thanks. Another potential cause for the increase on loneliness I've been wondering about lately is that perhaps first adults became lonely and subjected to a disintegrating social life. Then they forgot to teach their kids how to develop relationships and become men and women of action. I think statistically it's around 2010 that teenagers stop going out and visiting their friends on a nightly basis, which reveals that we're just now getting a generation of young adults who have been almost completely nurtured in an atomized environment.
Once one turns sixteen he or she is driven into the workforce and commanded to focus on school so they can keep the social status that their parents had or move upward. At age 16 let's say, a person develops their own cocoon of interests, hobbies, and obligations that they pursue basically on their own. In the recent past it seems that people's lives were still to an extent defined by consumption, but at least that consumption took place with other people. So there was not solitude but neither was there loneliness. It's no coincidence that identity has become such an important facet of life. Everyone encases themselves apart from other people so that one feels all we have is ourselves.
I don't know, I'm just riffing.
IF YOU'RE STILL READING THIS STOP WEARING HEADPHONES OUTSIDE
The lockdowns and social distancing of the past two years served to exacerbate the “atomization” of our society, driving us all toward technological mediums. I was raised in a socially disintegrated context; a fact that is never far from mind as a parent now. I find myself seeking community intentionally with the thought to teach my kids what it looks like to have community. Yet, I can’t help feeling something about community has been lost for me. I hope my “failing forward” will be enough to give my children a start.
and imagine what it is to never, or very rarely experience solitude as so many of our youth do now
This post has given me pause for thought, to be more accurate many pauses for thought. I suppose it is Hannah Arendt. Hers was an intellect surfacing from the drowning horror, still caught in the surface tension. Totalitarianism? She was writing about the origins of the horror, perhaps a new form, not a matter of scale. The previous structure had gone. The old European empires, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, the Ottomans, and, though we in GB did not know it until later, the British empire. Europe had experienced full-on industrialised warfare. The Totalitarian regimes had emerged in two very different regions: one vast and still largely agrarian, and the other an advanced complex industrial economy with a working efficient Bismarckian administration. Both were taken over by pathological 'rationalities' in the so-called control room who chose to develop the machine-mind.
What was the psychology, was it personal or collective, Freudian or Jungian? How did it capture the control mechanisms of societies and infect subordinate minds? I guess the questions are relevant today for us consumers.
PS I am not going to argue with Arendt. This post sent me looking and I found her argument with Scholem after the Jerusalem trial. Two good Germans, top-intellects and Jews of course: in the background the Enlightenment (for latter see for example the surviving US Constitution). It ended in the failure of discourse. Ouch. The loneliness?
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9a8a/3cbd6b862bba81438497057d5623e05ec657.pdf?_ga=2.5701110.413079003.1655549658-1202385370.1654856864
thank you for this!