Loneliness, says Deborah Orr, “is an ailment of modernity…hardwired into modern life.” But while the wired world has made us more isolated, loneliness has a long pedigree. Two thousand years ago, Epictetus admonished us “never say you are alone, for you are not alone. Your God and your genius is within.” The Stoics saw loneliness as a chance to grow, an opportunity to make yourself better. “It is the fate of all great souls to live alone,” proclaims Kierkegaard. Yet loneliness hurts. “Loneliness,” remarks Mother Teresa, “and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” It is looking through time-stained curtains at an unreachable world. The bee dies when it stings, but the sting of loneliness only makes it grow stronger. What is loneliness and how can we deal with it?
What Is Loneliness?
Loneliness is what we feel when our social meets are not met. So you can be lonely in a crowd, but not lonely a hundred miles away from anyone, provided you have people in your life one way or another. For a lonely person, the weather of the soul is cloudy. The world can be a prison, where the tree-line on the horizon is a mocking set of bars, the call of birds impossibly far off. Loneliness strikes at the heart of who we are as human beings, for we are, as Aristotle says, social individuals. A lone caveman is an easy lunch for a saber-toothed tiger. Without a social group, you died. (Aristotle said a person alone is either more or less than human, either a god–and none of us are gods–or undeveloped.) “We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden,” as Seneca (purportedly) said.
But we are not like ants or bees, fungible parts of a colony. We are individuals, deeply aware of our distinctness, with a strong sense of where “me” ends and the rest of the world begins. We all need a robust realm we keep for ourselves, apart from others. We are robust individuals within a strongly knit social group of some kind. That is why there is a right to privacy (as I argued in A Holistic Approach to Rights). We all need our own space. But no one is immune from loneliness. We all have social needs.
Six Kinds of Loneliness
There are six major aspects of our need for personal connection to others.
- Connection to something larger than ourselves—a common project and something we identify with;
- Being accepted;
- Being seen and heard; Getting a Reality check (feedback) and not feeling Invisible, a pebble under a dark sea;
- Support and assistance when needed;
- Pleasurable companionship; and
- Physical intimacy (touch or sex). (Babies who are not touched fail to develop properly. The need for touch does not disappear with adulthood.)
The loneliness of being single taps into all six. In a marriage you create a life together (common project). You have someone you enjoy spending time with and doing things with (companionship). You have someone to hug you, hold you, and (maybe) share sexual activity. If you are single not by choice, you feel rejected. You don’t have someone who witnesses and shares everything you do (“how was your day?”) and you don’t have a helpmate, someone who will stand by you when you are sick or failing or just can’t do it alone. Friends and family can do some of this, of course. While I myself can’t really be happy unless I have a mate, some people do quite fine when they’re not romantically coupled. You just have to find alternate ways to satisfy these needs.
Dealing with Loneliness
There are two ways of dealing with loneliness. You can become less lonely (mitigate the loneliness) by increasing your social connection. You can also learn to accept loneliness, making it less painful and hurtful. Both help. Fortunately, some things you can do will help with both mitigation and acceptance. (There isn’t a sharp line between them anyway.)
Mitigating Loneliness
If you want to decrease your sense of loneliness and social isolation, pay attention to all six aspects of loneliness. You may not find all six kinds of connection in the same place. A support group might hear you and listen to you, a church or political activist group may give you a sense of community and a connection with something greater, a trusted neighbor may be someone you can count on for assistance, and a family member may give you unconditional acceptance. Diversifying is always a good strategy. Don’t expect one source to meet all your needs. Small connections add up. Six people who will sometimes help you may prove as good or better than one person who will give you the shirt off his back (but may not be wearing a shirt when you need one).
Kieran Setiva, in a wonderful book called Life is Hard, has several useful suggestions. I do recommend reading his chapter on loneliness (well, the whole book, really). Health Service Executive https://www2.hse.ie/mental-health/life-situations-events/loneliness/coping-with/ and Mind https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/loneliness/tips-to-manage-loneliness/ give useful tips. Here is my list:
1.Enjoy even brief conversations. In the past, when people lived in small towns, everyone knew the grocer, the postman, and the blacksmith or auto mechanic. Small exchanges of pleasantries, where (to borrow a phrase from Cheers) everyone knows your name, foster connection and belonging. In the modern world, especially in big cities, these everyday ties may be lacking. You can create them, to some extent, with brief conversations with people you see regularly, like Starbucks baristas and postal workers. (But remember they have a job to do, and may look forward to moments of quiet, so your conversations must not interfere or impose.)
2. Push yourself to be social. Break the cycle of loneliness, where loneliness causes social discomfort, which causes even more loneliness. Pushing yourself to engage in small social interactions will make you gradually more comfortable with people.
3. Join activities. Most people are surrounded by opportunities to get involved. What do you enjoy? If you like playing recorder, join a recorder group (check out ARS affiliated groups in your area). If you like playing softball or baseball, join a local league. If you like crocheting or gardening, join a local crochet or garden group. In addition to groups, keep an eye out for one-time events focused on one of your interests. You may make friends or learn about groups or other social opportunities. What is important to you? If the environment or religion is important to you, join a church or environmental group and participate in religious or environmental events. In picking groups or activities, you are looking for one or more of the these: a connection to something greater to yourself (like God or nature or art); a way to work together with others toward a common goal (joint action); and making friends and new acquaintances, who might hear you, help you, support you, or provide pleasurable companionship. What are new things you might give a try? Break out of your rut by (safely) trying new things. You might want to start with “low-commitment” experiments to see if a new activity or interest works for you (a game of bowling rather than joining a league, for example.) Don’t be too quick to discard a new past-time or interest. Sometimes things grow on you or get better as you gain skill and knowledge. Give it a reasonable chance.
4. Be there for others. Sometimes giving without expecting a return is the best way to grow connections. Setiva mentions paying attention to the needs of others, listening, and opening yourself up to others. Helping other people who need assistance is another way.
Accepting Loneliness
Accepting loneliness has two aspects. One thing you can do is lessen the hurt by finding other ways to fulfill your needs (soften the negative). The other is to embrace the joys of solitude (accentuate the positive).
Lessening the Hurt
The six types of loneliness reveal the pains of being lonely. Rejection hurts and lowers your self-esteem. Feeling cut off from community and shared ideals and projects makes the world feel smaller and less interesting. Without a reality check, you’re not sure of your perceptions and you don’t correct your misperceptions. Feeling unseen and unheard makes you feel that your life isn’t real, didn’t really happen. Lack of pleasurable companionship means there is less to enjoy and makes it harder to fully enjoy what you do have. Lack of support lowers confidence.
Here are some ways of meeting those needs that do not depend on having friends and family or belonging to a group:
5. Boost your self-esteem. Set small goals and celebrate yourself for reaching them. Keep a journal where, every day, you list at least one good thing you did or one good thing about yourself.
6. Explore new interests. Enjoy life-long learning. If you take up macrame, cooking, gardening, a musical instrument, or studying physics, you will find new things to be excited about and look forward to.
7. Do things for others or that contribute to others. Volunteer at a soup kitchen—even if you don’t make friends, the act of helping others will make you feel good (and good about yourself).
8. Dedicate yourself to a cause. Connecting to something meaningful to you, even if you do it alone, unites your brief and single life with something beyond yourself and gives it meaning.
9. Take pleasure in the achievements and joys of others.
10. Connect to the spiritual. For some people, this means feeling close to God. For others, it may mean communing with nature or sensing the oneness or interconnectedness of all things. Take time to savor the thousand tiny miracles unfolding unnoticed in the cobwebs of the world: the delicate shades of moss on a riverbank, the sharp textures of sunlit tire tracks in mud, the sound of a ball bouncing. See yourself in every sound and color of this blooming world.
11. Use the pain of loneliness as motivation to grow and succeed.
12. Turn your pain and sadness into art. Write poetry or music, paint, dance, design, knit, or whatever your talent and fancy suggest.
13. Practice self-compassion. Stop being your own worst critic. Take care of yourself as you would take care of someone you love.
14. Explore physical self-gratification. There are many solo ways of celebrating and enjoying the body, including sexual stimulation, exercise, dance, yoga, and tai chi.
15. Adopt a pet. Pet-human bonds offer many (not all) of the same rewards as human-human bonds.
16. Make a regular date with yourself to treat yourself.
17. Embrace solitude.
Embracing Solitude
Being alone can make us feel restless, worthless, imprisoned. Bertrand Russell spoke of “that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.” One of the great skills in life is learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. We can calm the bitten-mouse mind and embrace the positive features of solitude. As May Sarton says, “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.” Go to a quiet place. Let your mind settle gently on itself. Listen. Read. The world is full of miraculous things. The Henon Bamboo flowers once every hundred to hundred and twenty years. Bamboo are really a kind of grass, yet somehow they keep time for a hundred years so they can bloom in synch. An octopus has nine brains and three hearts. Ocean quahogs can live hundreds of years, while glass sponges can live thousands. It’s believed that Uranus and Neptune actually rain diamonds. With a book, you can be alone and not alone, in the company of countless people, facts, ecosystems, galaxies. Go to a secluded spot in the woods. Smell, walk, touch, listen. The world is a symphony of scents and sights played for you alone.
17 Memorable Quotations about Solitude
Henry David Thoreau: “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
Rumi: “There is a loneliness more precious than life.”
Jenova Chen: “We are all born alone and die alone. The loneliness is definitely part of the journey of life.”
Roxanne Gay: “Maybe true love isn’t out there for me, but I can sublimate my loneliness with the notion that true love is out there for someone.”
Gail Honeyman: “We can all fight against loneliness by engaging in random acts of kindness.” [Elinor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is a powerful exploration of loneliness.]
Paul Tillich: “Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.”
Jean-Paul Sartre: “If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company”.
Friedrich Nietzsche: “Solitude makes us tougher towards ourselves and tenderer towards others. In both ways it improves our character.”
Petrarch: solitude “rehabilitates the soul, corrects morals, renews affections, erases blemishes, purges faults, (and) reconciles God and man.”
John Steinbeck: “All great and precious things are lonely.”
Dag Hammarskjold: “Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.”
Goethe: “The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.”
Seneca: “Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.”
Marcus Aurelius: “Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
Schopenhauer: a person “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 alone that he is really free.”
Lao Tzu: “the Master makes use of [solitude], embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.”
Disclaimer
Nothing that appears on this blog is meant to replace legal advice, therapy, or medical treatment. I am not providing legal, medical, or mental health advice. Always seek the advice of your own attorney or medical or mental health provider about specific questions concerning your specific health or legal issues.
