• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

The power of lonely

Vasilisa

Symbolic Herald
Joined
Feb 2, 2010
Messages
3,946
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
The power of lonely
What we do better without other people around
By Leon Neyfakh
March 6, 2011
The Boston Globe

Excerpt:
You hear it all the time: We humans are social animals. We need to spend time together to be happy and functional, and we extract a vast array of benefits from maintaining intimate relationships and associating with groups. Collaborating on projects at work makes us smarter and more creative. Hanging out with friends makes us more emotionally mature and better able to deal with grief and stress.

Spending time alone, by contrast, can look a little suspect. In a world gone wild for wikis and interdisciplinary collaboration, those who prefer solitude and private noodling are seen as eccentric at best and defective at worst, and are often presumed to be suffering from social anxiety, boredom, and alienation.

But an emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us — that certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around, and that even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of focus and creative thinking. There is even research to suggest that blocking off enough alone time is an important component of a well-functioning social life — that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with people, we should make sure we’re spending enough of it away from them. Just as regular exercise and healthy eating make our minds and bodies work better, solitude experts say, so can being alone.

One ongoing Harvard study indicates that people form more lasting and accurate memories if they believe they’re experiencing something alone. Another indicates that a certain amount of solitude can make a person more capable of empathy towards others. And while no one would dispute that too much isolation early in life can be unhealthy, a certain amount of solitude has been shown to help teenagers improve their moods and earn good grades in school.

“There’s so much cultural anxiety about isolation in our country that we often fail to appreciate the benefits of solitude,” said Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University whose book “Alone in America,” in which he argues for a reevaluation of solitude, will be published next year. “There is something very liberating for people about being on their own. They’re able to establish some control over the way they spend their time. They’re able to decompress at the end of a busy day in a city...and experience a feeling of freedom.”

Figuring out what solitude is and how it affects our thoughts and feelings has never been more crucial. The latest Census figures indicate there are some 31 million Americans living alone, which accounts for more than a quarter of all US households. And at the same time, the experience of being alone is being transformed dramatically, as more and more people spend their days and nights permanently connected to the outside world through cellphones and computers. In an age when no one is ever more than a text message or an e-mail away from other people, the distinction between “alone” and “together” has become hopelessly blurry, even as the potential benefits of true solitude are starting to become clearer.

< read the entire article >
 
G

Ginkgo

Guest
There is even research to suggest that blocking off enough alone time is an important component of a well-functioning social life — that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with people, we should make sure we’re spending enough of it away from them.

Precisely. :yes: Thank you for posting this article!
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Solitude is as important part of life as socializing. In solitude one can best seek contemplation about themselves and the world. The key is to maintain balance.
 

Such Irony

Honor Thy Inferior
Joined
Jul 23, 2010
Messages
5,059
MBTI Type
INtp
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Thanks for sharing.

A little introversion is good for the soul. :nice:
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
20,589
Enneagram
827
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
true... I need time to decompress after work in order to be able to deal with anything... too many people :unsure:

sometimes some quiet is a very, very good thing indeed...
 

SilkRoad

Lay the coin on my tongue
Joined
May 26, 2009
Messages
3,932
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
However, I don't like the fact that they referred to it as "lonely" in the headline. Lonely and alone are not the same. Lonely automatically implies unhappiness. And some of the loneliest times in my life were when I was surrounded by people...
 

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
Solitude is a very important thing, and I don't think it's the same thing as lonely.
 

Vasilisa

Symbolic Herald
Joined
Feb 2, 2010
Messages
3,946
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
I'm glad people enjoyed this article. Its true what you point out, they aren't the same, obviously they put that as a lure.

I thought this bit was so interesting:
The first invokes a well-known concept from social psychology called “social loafing,” which says that people tend not to try as hard if they think they can rely on others to pick up their slack. (If two people are pulling a rope, for example, neither will pull quite as hard as they would if they were pulling it alone.) But Burum leans toward a different explanation, which is that sharing an experience with someone is inherently distracting, because it compels us to expend energy on imagining what the other person is going through and how they’re reacting to it.

“People tend to engage quite automatically with thinking about the minds of other people,” Burum said in an interview. “We’re multitasking when we’re with other people in a way that we’re not when we just have an experience by ourselves.”
 

Z Buck McFate

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
6,047
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
But Burum leans toward a different explanation, which is that sharing an experience with someone is inherently distracting, because it compels us to expend energy on imagining what the other person is going through and how they’re reacting to it.

“People tend to engage quite automatically with thinking about the minds of other people,” Burum said in an interview. “We’re multitasking when we’re with other people in a way that we’re not when we just have an experience by ourselves.”

Ooooh... definitely. I really like the way that's phrased. It's exhausting at times, and this states it better than I've been able to myself.


I also thought this was interesting:

Figuring out what solitude is and how it affects our thoughts and feelings has never been more crucial. The latest Census figures indicate there are some 31 million Americans living alone, which accounts for more than a quarter of all US households. And at the same time, the experience of being alone is being transformed dramatically, as more and more people spend their days and nights permanently connected to the outside world through cellphones and computers. In an age when no one is ever more than a text message or an e-mail away from other people, the distinction between “alone” and “together” has become hopelessly blurry, even as the potential benefits of true solitude are starting to become clearer.

I'd thought about this before, how having internet at home has changed living alone into a weird sort of ersatz solitude (at least, for people who spend a lot of time online).
 

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
Staff member
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Messages
27,226
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
However, I don't like the fact that they referred to it as "lonely" in the headline. Lonely and alone are not the same. Lonely automatically implies unhappiness. And some of the loneliest times in my life were when I was surrounded by people...
+1
 

Vasilisa

Symbolic Herald
Joined
Feb 2, 2010
Messages
3,946
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
An interesting commentary by William Deresiewicz on solitude and leadership:

Thinking for yourself means finding yourself, finding your own reality. Here’s the other problem with Facebook and Twitter and even The New York Times. When you expose yourself to those things, especially in the constant way that people do now—older people as well as younger people—you are continuously bombarding yourself with a stream of other people’s thoughts. You are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom. In other people’s reality: for others, not for yourself. You are creating a cacophony in which it is impossible to hear your own voice, whether it’s yourself you’re thinking about or anything else. That’s what Emerson meant when he said that “he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.” Notice that he uses the word lead. Leadership means finding a new direction, not simply putting yourself at the front of the herd that’s heading toward the cliff.
< the entire lecture is worth reading >


He has written about The End of Solitude before.


see also this thread: Intrusive Empathy/Intuition
 

Z Buck McFate

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
6,047
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
That’s a fantastic read.

I just read an editorial the other day arguing that our schools need to incorporate some kind of emotional management training into regular curriculum (Emotional Intelligence- The Forgotten Key To Educational Success). I strongly agreed with the writer’s sentiments about our culture having a serious problem with lacking appropriate emotional coping skills, but I’m wary about making this part of public school curriculum- basically for reasons very similar to what was stated in that lecture you posted: public schools take a very one-SJ-size-fits-all approach to teaching and the thought of that same approach being applied to teaching emotional intelligence to kids gives me *a lot* of pause. I can foresee a ‘the minority should be medicated into thinking like the majority’ mentality bleeding into the actual application, since there’s such overwhelming pressure on schools to produce tangible evidence of ‘productivity’. It could be a huge step backwards. But what was stated in that lecture is precisely what I’m concerned would be missing: people actually thinking about the 'emotional intelligence' they'd be teaching.

from lecture Vas posted said:
“The chance to find yourself.” Now that phrase, “finding yourself,” has acquired a bad reputation. It suggests an aimless liberal-arts college graduate—an English major, no doubt, someone who went to a place like Amherst or Pomona—who’s too spoiled to get a job and spends his time staring off into space.

I can’t even imagine how different our culture would be if we placed anywhere near as much esteem on critical thinking skills as we do on the jump-through-the-hoop skills.
 

mochajava

New member
Joined
Jul 28, 2010
Messages
475
MBTI Type
INFJ
According to Carole Robin, a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in organizational behavior, our ability to be in touch with and express our feelings is slowly socialized out of us. She gives the example of a toddler who bumps his head: the mother rushes to him and says "You're okay. You're okay." We're told to be okay even if we're not.

What do you all think of this statement? I very much agree with it. One of the toughest parts of the grieving process is just realizing "this hurts", being okay with that, and starting there. So much of your mind is telling you "why aren't you over this already?" and, in my experience, society tells you more of the latter.

emotions don't go away unless addressed

Yup, yup, so true - so many people wouldn't believe me if I said this!

I really think this article is called for, and I'd like to explore this topic further.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
Solitude is as important part of life as socializing. In solitude one can best seek contemplation about themselves and the world. The key is to maintain balance.

+1

And I say that as someone whose Extroversion/Social gravity can be OTT at times.
 

Rail Tracer

Freaking Ratchet
Joined
Jun 29, 2010
Messages
3,031
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
An interesting commentary by William Deresiewicz on solitude and leadership:

Thinking for yourself means finding yourself, finding your own reality. Here’s the other problem with Facebook and Twitter and even The New York Times. When you expose yourself to those things, especially in the constant way that people do now—older people as well as younger people—you are continuously bombarding yourself with a stream of other people’s thoughts. You are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom. In other people’s reality: for others, not for yourself. You are creating a cacophony in which it is impossible to hear your own voice, whether it’s yourself you’re thinking about or anything else. That’s what Emerson meant when he said that “he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.” Notice that he uses the word lead. Leadership means finding a new direction, not simply putting yourself at the front of the herd that’s heading toward the cliff.
< the entire lecture is worth reading >


He has written about The End of Solitude before.


see also this thread: Intrusive Empathy/Intuition

It is funny how I tell some of my thoughts to just shut up-they are basically other people's thoughts that are intruding on my ability to think for myself.

Great that I know I am not crazy for doing that, just trying to think for myself and not for people thinking for me. :D

But that is how I like to use my alone time. Contemplate, sort out my thoughts, relax a little.
 

Z Buck McFate

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
6,047
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
What do you all think of this statement? I very much agree with it. One of the toughest parts of the grieving process is just realizing "this hurts", being okay with that, and starting there. So much of your mind is telling you "why aren't you over this already?" and, in my experience, society tells you more of the latter.

Yup, yup, so true - so many people wouldn't believe me if I said this!
I really think this article is called for, and I'd like to explore this topic further.

Yeah, I don’t want to derail Vasilisa’s thread- but I think anti-depressants being the most widely prescribed drug in the nation (as least according to 2007 CDC reports) really ought to be a bigger red flag than it is, indicating that lack of emotional intelligence is a serious problem.

more from Solitude and Leadership article said:
…And the way to do it is by thinking through these issues for yourself—morality, mortality, honor—so you will have the strength to deal with them when they arise. Waiting until you have to confront them in practice would be like waiting for your first firefight to learn how to shoot your weapon. Once the situation is upon you, it’s too late. You have to be prepared in advance. You need to know, already, who you are and what you believe: not what the Army believes, not what your peers believe (that may be exactly the problem), but what you believe.

I think that learning to be honest with oneself about ‘what you think’ (in the sense of how ‘thinking’ is defined in the article) and ‘what you feel’ go hand in hand- that building either one of those skills would probably lead to strengthening the other. But in our culture, we’re constantly dissuaded from that sort of introspection: it’s much faster and more ‘productive’ (in an immediately visible/objectively measurable way)- and therefore more esteemed- to just learn to jump through the hoops instead. As long as our livelihood depends on our ability to jump through hoops (instead of stopping to consider how useful the hoops are, if they could be improved, etc)- which is to say that as long as our paycheck and quality of life are directly at the effect of the extent to which we forsake introspection for 'productivity'- then we'll (as a society) kind of blind ourselves to the benefits of stopping to reflect on things. Or something like that.
 

skylights

i love
Joined
Jul 6, 2010
Messages
7,756
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
so/sx

well, someone had to do it. :D

thank you for the articles though, vasilisa. they're very interesting. as an extravert sometimes i struggle to abide in alone time where i am not engaged with anything but my own mind. it creates anxiety for me, while being stimulated by the world releases it.
 

93JC

Active member
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
3,989
Bump!

from "The power of lonely" said:
Perhaps this explains why seeing a movie alone feels so radically different than seeing it with friends: Sitting there in the theater with nobody next to you, you’re not wondering what anyone else thinks of it; you’re not anticipating the discussion that you’ll be having about it on the way home. All your mental energy can be directed at what’s happening on the screen.

Yes! YES! I often see movies alone and a couple friends have later asked me "Why didn't you say anything?! I would have gone with you!" As though going to a movie alone is a bad thing. I like going to see movies by myself because I can focus on the movie and not get distracted by the din of chatter.

Our society, on the whole, doesn't seem to make a distinction between 'alone' and 'lonely'. The word 'loner' is considered somewhat of an epithet. I think most people are incapable of being alone without feeling lonely, thus there is a stigma against being someone who not only is capable of being alone without feeling lonely but particularly against someone who wants to be alone.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have recognized disorders like "Avoidant Personality Disorder" and "Antisocial Personality Disorder", and people at large use terms like 'hermit' and 'recluse' to describe people who prefer to be alone. There are no such diagnoses for people who are the complete opposite. They are celebrated as 'socialites' and "social butterflies".

We are conditioned to believe that being alone will make you feel lonely. Being alone is 'bad'. Being alone in thought is 'unproductive', because there's often nothing to show anyone else for all that time spent pondering.

Perhaps that's why the popularity of Facebook, Twitter and the like exploded over the past five years. Telephones are now "mobile social devices", not only capable of making a telephone call but also texting and accessing the internet through our precious "social apps".

We spend so much time on things like Facebook, and maybe even internet forums, because we believe that being 'interconnected' with people will make us 'happy' or 'better' people. But these styles of interaction are so brief and impersonal it's not fulfilling (to me). I believe it is possible to say something of great substance in 140 words or less but most people have neither the time nor the inclination to pause and think of something profound to say. They're too busy being inundated with tweets and status updates and text messages and so on.


Maybe that's why Vasilisa's thread here was quickly done and buried after a handful of responses over the course of only a week. To be able to discuss this means sitting down and reading this, this and this, and then spending a lot of time digesting that information and thinking of a response more profound than "That was interesting, thanks for sharing," or "+1" (not meaning to pick on Coriolis, it was just too good an example to pass up :D).


I think most people glanced over this because it's "tl;dr": a sadly ironic abbreviation.
 

ceecee

Coolatta® Enjoyer
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
15,906
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
8w9
Bump!



Yes! YES! I often see movies alone and a couple friends have later asked me "Why didn't you say anything?! I would have gone with you!" As though going to a movie alone is a bad thing. I like going to see movies by myself because I can focus on the movie and not get distracted by the din of chatter.

Our society, on the whole, doesn't seem to make a distinction between 'alone' and 'lonely'. The word 'loner' is considered somewhat of an epithet. I think most people are incapable of being alone without feeling lonely, thus there is a stigma against being someone who not only is capable of being alone without feeling lonely but particularly against someone who wants to be alone.

I agree. I have never thought anything was strange about seeing a movie alone or eating in a restaurant alone. Especially eating alone. I bring a book, I order what I want, I don't worry about rushing or having to make conversation. I rarely mention my enjoyment of this, people find it truly odd.
 
Top