Solitude

Anthony Storr wrote a book originally called The School of Genius, published in 1988. I bought it years later when it had been retitled Solitude. I was intrigued by that title because I enjoy my own company, and consider that a good thing. For those who believe in labels I might be called introverted. But that designation can have negative connotations, and I also like spending time with good friends, and people who share my interests. So I prefer to say I enjoy my own company.

In the Introduction to the book Storr writes, “Current wisdom, especially that propagated by the various schools of psychoanalysis, assumes that man (and woman – my addition) is a social being who needs the companionship and affection of other human beings from cradle to grave. It is widely believed that interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only source of human happiness. Yet the lives of creative individuals often seem to run counter to this assumption.”

Storr then goes on to list a number of men that he calls great thinkers, who lived alone or never married or raised families. Here’s few women that he should have added: Roberta Bondar, Emily Carr, Kim Campbell (did you know she was born Averil Phaedra Douglas Cambell? I have no idea where the Kim came from), Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Elizabeth I, Helen Mirren, Katharine Hepburn, Georgia O’Keeffe, Hildegard of Bingen, Dorothea Lange, Gabrielle Roy, and there are many more. Which is not to say that women who marry and/or have children can’t crave and have solitude.

Further on in the book Storr writes, “Modern psychotherapists, including myself, have taken as their criterion of emotional maturity the capacity of individuals to make mature relationships on equal terms. With few exceptions, psychotherapists have omitted to consider the fact that the capacity to be alone is also an aspect of emotional maturity.”

Of course, Storr’s book was written a long time ago, and psychology has changed as far as I can tell. However, many people apparently do not like to be alone. A Psychology Today article (Nov 2017) on Loneliness as a Subjective State of Mind states, “According to a recent study, many people prefer to give themselves a mild electric shock than to sit in a room alone with their own thoughts.” The article goes on to say that people who are alone are not necessarily lonely.

I have known this for most of my life. I love to spend time reading or listening to music or going for a walk or going to a movie or going for lunch or coffee – and all of these are activities I can happily do alone. I can also share them, but it’s not a case of need, but rather one of choice, and what I feel like doing. After all, you can feel very lonely while surrounded by people, even family or friends. And if you find yourself alone and it’s not your own choice, you can embrace the situation and find ways to enjoy that time.

I have another book, Words on Solitude and Silence that contains beautiful quotes:

“Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind … Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world.” – Rabindranath Tagore

“Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.” – Marian Wright Edelman

“Loneliness is the poverty of self, solitude is the richness of self.” May Sarton

“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.” Pearl S. Buck.

I’ll end with George Gordon Lord Byron:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.