Then Again I Felt the Lonely
Since the late 1980s, scientists have been tracking a whale beyond the Pacific Ocean.
It sings at a sonic frequency higher than whatsoever other species of whale: at 52 Hertz, just in a higher place the lowest note on a tuba.
The whale calls out; no one answers.
It'south been nicknamed the loneliest animal in the world.
Loneliness.
It's become a muddied word, loaded with shame and stigma. No one admits to feeling it.
Scientists diagnose 'loneliness epidemics' every bit if it's an infectious disease. Nosotros fear hearing the discussion spoken aloud in case nosotros catch it.
It terrifies us.
Perhaps that's why children are sent to their rooms to be alone as punishment. Adults without families are automatically pitied.
But wait — isn't in that location a difference betwixt solitude and loneliness?
We use the two interchangeably because we've been conditioned to recall of them equally the aforementioned state; someone who spends time alone must, naturally, exist alone.
But that's non the case.
Loneliness is being lonely — and non liking it. It's a feeling.
Confinement is beingness solitary — and content. It's a choice.
This brings usa to an interesting paradox: if you can primary solitude, you'll never feel lonely again.
Continued but alone
From the telegram to the phone to the mobile to the net, all major cultural inventions have served the same purpose: to bring the states closer together.
Today, nosotros've reached peak hyper-connectivity. We can cross oceans at the bear on of the button, speak to someone, anywhere, 24/7.
We've never been so connected — superficially, at least.
And yet, statistics report that we've never felt so solitary.
The United Kingdom's Prime Minister Theresa May has announced a loneliness minister.
Australia organized a Coalition to Finish Loneliness.
I in five Americans reports rarely or never feeling close to others.
And a recent study of over twenty,000 people found that about half of respondents sometimes or always felt lonely.
The technologies connecting us are isolating the states.
Here'south the truth about loneliness
Loneliness is an internal land that doesn't — as near people assume — depend on external factors.
In fact, it's largely unrelated to what's going on around us.
You can be surrounded past people, lying in bed next to your partner, at a party, or in the role, and still feel alone to your core.
And you can be alone, millions of miles abroad from any human contact, and nonetheless feel joyfully connected to the world.
It's less about our circumstances, more about how we react to them.
Our fear of solitude is really fear of colorlessness
We read our phones while we brush our teeth. We listen to Podcasts on the subway.
We tin't just exist. We experience compelled to always do.
We can't let ourselves a moment of cocky-inflicted colorlessness.
We're scared of where this boredom volition take united states.
Of what we volition hear in our heads if we lapse into true silence: hopes, dreams, shame, embarrassment… Fear of failure.
We want to be entertained, constantly. The alternative — introspection — intimidates united states.
So, we drown out our discomfort with distractions.
But that doesn't mean the discomfort will go away.
Connected yet alone
The Western globe promotes two glaring contradictions:
one. Know yourself.
two. The human species is born to be social.
We're told happiness comes from within.
And yet, we're never taught how to exist alone with ourselves.
We put enormous endeavor into training children in how to be social.
Nosotros send them to playgroups and playdates.
We tell them not to fight, not to swear, to be polite.
But we deprive them of one affair: the capacity to be alone, and content.
Nosotros gloat cocky-esteem. But we stigmatize spending time with the person we should know, and like, the best: ourselves.
The joy of being lone
Real confinement is nigh impossible to experience in the modern globe.
And for some, this makes information technology the ultimate privilege.
Beingness sent to your room as punishment?
"It should be a advantage," says Sara Maitland, author of How To Be Alone.
"It should be: 'You've been so practiced that now yous can go to your room to exist by yourself and practise anything y'all like!'"
Some people choose a life of consummate solitude. Others know they can harness times of stillness to find answers to questions, solutions to problems.
When I was first building Jotform, I spent more fourth dimension alone than I ever have. Granted, it wasn't the deep, echoing solitude of beingness cutting off from the internet in the center of Alaska.
After a certain amount of time by myself, I'd brainstorm to panic.
Just others, I'd push button through that initial discomfort. And it was on those days that my near original ideas came to me. Boredom is the almost important emotion that helped me to grow Jotform to almost 4 million users.
Solitude deprives you. It stretches yous. It illuminates. And this breeds creativity.
Zat Rana describes this process perfectly:
When yous surround yourself with moments of solitude and stillness, you lot become intimately familiar with your surroundings in a mode that forced stimulation doesn't allow.
The world becomes richer, the layers start to peel dorsum, and you encounter things for what they really are, in all their wholeness, in all their contradictions, and in all their unfamiliarity. You lot acquire that there are other things you are capable of paying attention to than just what makes the nigh noise on the surface.
Alone but non lone: how to apply confinement
Solitude is scary because it reminds us of how small we are. We realize that the world has, and will, keep turning on its axis without us.
We are insignificant. In some means, it'south a preview of death. That'southward why it requires great inner strength to be lone. To know that you are not going to disappear into thin air without human contact.
That strength is a muscle nosotros can practice through deliberate do.
And like whatever fear, the only way to overcome solitude is to confront it. Ease yourself in, with 10 minutes, then 20, then xxx, of solitude a twenty-four hours, or week, or month.
Equally I've written before, there's smashing ability in doing nothing at all.
Letting your boredom take yous will exist uncomfortable at get-go. Information technology might be painful — fifty-fifty profoundly so — but before long, this will ease.
The interesting thing about the 52 Hertz whale isn't its loneliness. After all, it can't be lone; loneliness is a man-made condition.
No. What sets the 52 Hertz whale apart from other species is its self-reliance. Its strength.
It's so powerful that it tin can survive for decades completely by itself.
Luckily for united states of america, solitude will ever be a selection, not an existence. It's true that humans are built-in to be social.
But when we find force — rather than fear — in solitude, we will live far richer lives: with others, and with ourselves.
This article is originally published on Sep eleven, 2018, and updated on Aug 04, 2020.
Source: https://www.jotform.com/blog/loneliness-vs-solitude/
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