Solitude
As an introvert that has lived a life that would have much more suited an extravert, I was profoundly moved to come across Susan Cain’s book “Quiet.” In fact I am just about to commence my third listen.
One of the most meaningful personal learnings that came to me from that book was recognising my limited personal capacity to be sociable. It gave me the confidence to accept just how challenging I find interacting with others for any extended time.
I recognised my personal need for solitude, for a time and space where I can stop and heal from the overwhelming effort and exertions of interaction.
For all that, I can stand up in front of any audience and speak, I have performed music and done amateur dramatics. But ask me to spend significant time just “interacting” and it can bring me out is a cold sweat.
But there is a paradox – when I was young there was a line in an Icicle Works Song that went “Find myself a loner, till I find myself alone.” Thank you Ian McNabb, that got me through a lot over the years. That and alcohol! Perhaps in this phrase there is separation of understanding between solitude and loneliness, the latter we now recognise as being a seriously unhealthy state.
Today though, I wanted to reflect upon solitude. I have the luck (if you can call it that) of living a relatively solitary existence for a few days. It seems a perfect time for that exploration.
My Space
Solitude (for me) is about relaxing into my space. My time, my being.
I was revisiting John O’Donoghue’s classic Anam Cara this week. I was taken by one chapter where he was reflecting on solitude and silence. He writes: “Silence is the sister of the divine …. It is a great friend of the soul.” It is a place where we can find ourselves.
How often in life do we get lost in the noise that emanates from the rest of the world? How often is the “self” drowned in the opinions of others of us. I have always loved Charles Horton Cooley’s quote “I am not who you think I am, I am not who I think I am, I am who I think that you think I am.” The life of a social animal comes at a price. Oscar Wilde summarised this dilemma well: “I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.”
As we get older it is easier to reflect on these things in a more balanced way. It is not just about hiding from the judgement and opinions of others, or escaping from the world. But it is finding time and space to indulge the self. Whether that is losing yourself in a good book, binging TV, writing poetry or meditating. It is finding the space and doing something that is just for ourselves.
As Arthur Schopenhauer so eloquently put it “A (wo)man can be him(her)self so long as (s)he is alone. If (s)he does not love solitude, (s)he will not love freedom; for it is only when (s)he is alone that (s)he is really free.” (My gender amends).
But there is more
John O’Donoghue beautifully expresses that there is a real opportunity of solitude: “If you have a trust in your own solitude, everything that you need to know will be revealed to you.”
Solitude provides a powerful reflective space where we can explore ourselves and our experiences without external judgement, peer pressure or some kind of social conforming drive. We can rest with things just as they are.
Not just to reflect, but also to inspire, to return to the wonderful Susan Cain: “Solitude is a catalyst for innovation.”
In solitude lies the foundation of creativity. It is a space where we can explore or sketch out ideas, scribble notes, or find out how we feel about things, or contemplate solutions to the challenges that might otherwise overwhelm us in more social environments.
I do not believe that we should live forever in solitude, and I am no would-be monk aspiring to a hermit’s life of reflective isolation. But I suggest there is value positively engaged solitary time and space. Like everything of worth it is essential a skill, and so it needs practice. With that practice we can develop the art, once we have learned the scales, we might perform the concerto.
I put it that being able to hold-space for ourselves in solitude, and engage with the self this way is a super-power, which breathes life into our own creative and inspirational selves. The super-heroes born of that super-power, those heroes of the self, show up when we give them their own uninterrupted time and space. When we give them solitude. We need to give ourselves some solitude.
