The bliss of solitude

To be able to be alone with yourself is a condition for the ability to love. If someone is attached to another person because they cannot stand on their own two feet, love may feel like a lifesaver, but the relationship is one of compromised love because it does not allow the other person to be themselves. To put it another way, if you are not capable of solitude, you might love to remove your loneliness, not to know another. Or you could say that the best relationships are about just being together, not doing stuff together. And being with someone requires you being able to be yourself.

John Bayley found a moving way of talking about it, when reflecting on how his love of Iris Murdoch took them 'closer and closer apart'. Or, if you are looking for a tip on how to find a partner, how about developing the capacity to enjoy spending a night in on your own!

Edward Gibbon, the historian, called solitude 'the school of genius.'

C.G. Jung advised people to have some time alone everyday for what he called 'active imagination', a time when you can let go.

William Wordsworth, in 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', talked of the 'bliss of solitude'. It develops the 'inward eye', for appreciating nature.

Of course, enforced solitude is a bad thing, even a form of torture. So be careful of too much solitude, and turning in on yourself. This is perhaps why religious hermits tend to live in clusters, 'alone together'; keeping their eyes looking out towards the community, as opposed to pure introspection, avoids madness.

Comments:

I suspect that loneliness and solitude are actually different things that may or may not be related. After all, you can feel lonely in company; and when people don't like solitude it could be that it is not loneliness they fear but being thrown on themselves: others bring distractions.

Quentin Crisp advised that the secret to happiness is to live alone. That does not mean being lonely. If you want to learn to dislike someone, live with them!