Solitude vs. Loneliness

Social commentators are right to be concerned about people sitting in isolation in front of computers, a prey to nasty stuff. Such isolation can lead some young people to encounter extremist views and conspiracy theories and other right-wing propaganda.

But being alone is not necessarily a source of loneliness.  "A man alone is always in bad company," Paul Valery is quoted as saying, but I disagree with this as an absolute principle.  A person left alone, adrift with ties to family or faith or any other community, can be in bad company--unless he or she seeks the kind of solitude that nourishes the spirit.

Creative people need solitude, which is not at all akin to loneliness.  Most of us need a few hours alone, especially in this noisy, busy culture; we need to be alone with ourselves.  Solitude implies a time apart that is enjoyable.  My time writing requires solitude; my wife, a poet and fiction writer, goes so far as to disconnect the telephone for what she calls "cloistered time."  Both of us are happy being on our own for a few hours reading, writing, or just thinking.
 
Anyone who has read Thomas Merton (Thoughts in Solitude, e.g.) or May Sarton or many other more recent writers knows that one can be happy, or at least contented, with a good bit of solitude.  I thought of this in my research into feline behavior. Cats are solitary creatures, but they also crave company and seek our attention. So it is with people, especially creative ones.  We need to interact with another living being, yet we also need time apart for ourselves.

Solitude is a precious commodity of the self, something the poet Rilke has in mind when he wrote, "I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other."  So the kind of love he envisions, as a poet, requires respecting the other's private domain, allowing the partner the creative freedom to be alone.

And yet being alone in contemplative prayer or meditation, as Merton and other can attest, is also to be connected to the vast web of others who are praying or meditating.  In being part of a community of silence, we are never really alone even while being on our own.  And we are certainly not lonely or in bad company.

Loneliness in the Workplace

As one of the many minor victims of Hurricane Irma as she blew through Florida recently, depriving us of power for several days, I found myself relying on silence, relishing the absence of the media, but missing the Internet. Gradually, I became restless and anxious (When will this be over?). Perhaps the main feeling was one of isolation. No one could telephone us for more than a week.  I again realized how much we humans are social creatures who need communication.

So recently when Linkedin sent me a discussion of a topic raised by the Harvard Business Review about the serious problem of loneliness at work, I immediately identified. Even without the benefit of a power outage, I know that a writer, and anyone who spends much of the day looking at a computer screen, has a life of isolation.  Often solitude is essential for the creative spirit, for contemplation. So we need some solitude, some private time and space.

But being alone can also lead to the sad feelings of loneliness, of being dis-connected from others.  And many people I know either teach online or work online or, like the many employees I encounter in stores and restaurants, have no opportunity to have a real conversation.  I think of mail carriers, lawn cutters, and cleaners as well as the many widowed and elderly people who live alone, isolated from a community or family. Some say they barely speak ten words a day to another person.

The Linkedin discussion brought up some interesting reasons for our "epidemic," as the original HBR article called it.  Matthew Giarmo, a psychologist, writes that we value the number of connections we make with people on social media and elsewhere rather than the quality of these connections. They are often not real relationships.

In the workplace, he says, we are told that the less you speak, the less you risk "inappropriate self-disclosure" and "boundary issues" designed by the law to protect our privacy. In addition, the work itself is often scripted and designed by software and is more mechanized than it used to be. As a result, we are often disengaged from our work and our fellow workers. 

Another writer, an extrovert, tired of eating lunch alone, feels isolated because his job in IT involves forced relationships or the kind of artificial connections made by Facebook.  Another person writes that the demand for productivity and efficiency leaves little room for social interaction or thoughtful interchange with others. Corporate America fails to recognize that innovation is the result of the exchange of ideas, yet many companies have employees who feel unheard, lonely, and undervalued.

Add to this the fact that few people have more than one close confidante, one real friend who has the time to listen to them.  And the over-reliance on electronic devices, which, however useful, are no substitute for person-to-person exchanges.

No wonder we lavish money on pets: They seem to listen patiently and are not into productivity. No wonder we have problems with drugs and alcohol. No wonder relationships and marriages are often affected by the stress of employees, who may be productive but are unhappy and often unable, I suspect, to articulate why they are unhappy, the way those responding to this article have done.

I am glad that my first experience with Linkedin has been so revealing. I hope the online conversation leads to some solutions in the workplace.