The Importance of SOLITUDE

IJB063 · March 29, 2020

"If you're lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company" - Jean Paul Sartre

"Nowhere can a man find a quieter and more untroubled retreat than his own soul" - Marcus Aurelius

"Loneliness is only an opportunity to cut adrift and find yourself. In solitude you are least alone" - Bruce Lee

"Without great solitude no serious work is possible" - Pablo Picasso

"A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is only is he truly free" - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is where ideas are born" - Nikola Tesla

"The fear of finding oneself alone - that is what they suffer from - and so they don't find themselves at all"

Solitude, I find Solitude is vital for personal development.

In the time of COVID 19, where everyone is locked inside for the foreseeable next few weeks, its a prime time to begin readjusting the mind. Which is the motivation for this bombardment of posts.

Now I'll start this post with a simple question

What is loneliness?

Like most great questions the answer is simple, but profound

Loneliness I find is the feeling of emptiness, not having others in your life to share your experience

People are social animals, we use others to confirm our realities

When someone is lonely they have no one to confirm their reality

So in a sense they are lost in reality - they have no basis for it

This is why so many people go insane with prolonged periods of isolation

Even prisoners, in high security prisons, prefer the company of psychopaths, killers and rapists than to be locked in solitary confinement for long periods of time

When you are lonely, you have no feeling of companionship as you drift through existence

Now just surrounding yourself with people will not stop you from feeling alone

No

You can feel completely alone in a crowd

"Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink"

The answer

Connection

Connection is what stops you from feeling alone.

For example - why, when people are lonely do they go to the movies- classic move trope

Because when at the cinema you surround yourselves with a bunch of strangers who are all experiencing the same thing

So in order to cure loneliness you have to be part of something larger than you

You have to have that sense of connection

This could be your life purpose

A project, a business, a work of art etc...

The specifics aren't what's important - its the transcendent purpose

Which your goals should be based upon, as mentioned previously

If you find that life purpose

Your loneliness vanishes

Now solitude and loneliness are not the same thing, as Marcus Aurelius says

"Nowhere can a man find a quieter and more untroubled retreat than his own soul" - Marcus Aurelius

Because Solitude makes clear to us the forest through the trees, it reveals to us that life purpose

From Robert Greene Book Mastery - Quote taken from my notes

"Eventually, you will hit upon a particular field, niche, or opportunity that suits you perfectly. You will recognize it when you find it because it will spark that childlike sense of wonder and excitement; it will feel right. Once found, everything will fall into place. You will learn more quickly and more deeply. Your skill level will reach a point where you will be able to claim your independence from within the group you work for and move out on your own. In a world in which there is so much we cannot control, this will bring you the ultimate form of power. You will determine your circumstances"

Other people cannot cure your loneliness, the only way to cure it is to strive for something greater than yourself. An ideal, a vision that you have crafted that allows you to claim independence in the world

To do this you have to understand yourself - because if you don't understand yourself how do you know what to aim at. You're left purposeless. This is why people turn to heavy drugs, to sedate themselves from that feeling of loneliness - to attempt to chemically recreate that connection

But that can never work - its just a plaster on a broken leg

To reference spiral dynamics

Purple - Our primitive ancestors, they would never of felt alone - because they had their tribe - their connection to life - to survive as a hunter gatherer we were completely dependent upon one another

Loneliness is a product of the modern age - The Orange Spiral

Many people feel alone in this society and culture

A lot of us feel like the whole world is at some party that we weren't invited to

But the answer is not to wallow in it - or to sedate ourselves

Sedation is a destructive act

The productive act is to restore that connection

Loneliness is a blessing in disguise

A blessing that should be used and not squandered - as loneliness has been used by so many of the greats

As quoted above - Pablo Picasso - Marcus Aurelius - Nikola Tesla etc...

When loneliness is used to pursue our ideals and goals it transforms into solitude

Do not fritter it away

So use this time in productively to get shit done

Use the posts I made if they help

Here are some solitude quotes - if you have any leave them here

Here is a link to my favourite Ted talk by Sebastian Junger - check out his Joe Rogan appearances on his podcast - Give the clip a watch its 14 minutes and I think his book Tribes ties in great to this topic - I left the audiobook which is on Youtube - or buy the book, its a super quick read

Here are the video links