It's everywhere: If you truly enjoy solitude, actually crave solitude and live it, you will be unhealthy and unhappy in your very short life. Oh my! yes that is some people and I don't question the research, but it's too small a group to cover all types, and those other types need to be known as possibly well and thriving. From my own experience and others I have read about, having solitude, silence, time to create, to live an interior life is what brings beauty, meaning, fulfillment. and good health. And I do question the idea that the purpose of a human life is happiness. Isn't happiness a by-product of living a meaningful life?
I am over 80 years old, and I have had close to 20 years of the most fulfilling part of my life, by seeking out solitude after a very active life heading social organizations and very much part of a community--and rearing a large family. Through that time I always craved for solitude. I'd hide in closets to get it. To have time for creative work and solitude was a dream. I have that dream now and I am very healthy--take no medicines, and deeply value every day alone. I do teach prisoners by mail through College Guild, but that is still part of my solitude. In a week I may not see a human being. In my woods I have connection to all kinds of beings, none human.
So I'm speaking up for those of us who are not going to die from lack of human relationship. ((I do know of those who die because of it!) who are not lonely, and who live meaningful lives with times of great joy. It would be so good not to hear these kinds of suggestive assumptions coming from the medical or sociological disciplines. History and the present have abundant examples of people who preferred solitude and lived long, healthful and giving years. May we recognize the benefits of that kind of lifestyle for some, and help to stop the idea that is out there--that loners are usually psychological misfits and maybe even dangerous.
On Oct 20, 2016 Nola Denslow wrote:
It's everywhere: If you truly enjoy solitude, actually crave solitude and live it, you will be unhealthy and unhappy in your very short life. Oh my! yes that is some people and I don't question the research, but it's too small a group to cover all types, and those other types need to be known as possibly well and thriving. From my own experience and others I have read about, having solitude, silence, time to create, to live an interior life is what brings beauty, meaning, fulfillment. and good health. And I do question the idea that the purpose of a human life is happiness. Isn't happiness a by-product of living a meaningful life?
I am over 80 years old, and I have had close to 20 years of the most fulfilling part of my life, by seeking out solitude after a very active life heading social organizations and very much part of a community--and rearing a large family. Through that time I always craved for solitude. I'd hide in closets to get it. To have time for creative work and solitude was a dream. I have that dream now and I am very healthy--take no medicines, and deeply value every day alone. I do teach prisoners by mail through College Guild, but that is still part of my solitude. In a week I may not see a human being. In my woods I have connection to all kinds of beings, none human.
So I'm speaking up for those of us who are not going to die from lack of human relationship. ((I do know of those who die because of it!) who are not lonely, and who live meaningful lives with times of great joy. It would be so good not to hear these kinds of suggestive assumptions coming from the medical or sociological disciplines. History and the present have abundant examples of people who preferred solitude and lived long, healthful and giving years. May we recognize the benefits of that kind of lifestyle for some, and help to stop the idea that is out there--that loners are usually psychological misfits and maybe even dangerous.