That's the highest rated comment at a Washington Post column, "How — and why — you should increase your social network as you age/'It’s never too late to develop meaningful relationships,' one expert says."
I enjoyed the sentence: "I read, I stream, I read news online, I follow art classes online, I make my own art in sketchbooks, I read, I browse online, I read."
Another writer, using the same material, might argue that one is never really alone, that you have the company of the very best of humanity when you read. You can also work with the concept that you are not not alone when you yourself are your own substantial and beloved companion. And, for some people, there is God. For others, dog.
But I like this presentation, questioning the importance of relationships and vaunting solitude.
ADDED: The line "But I love my solitary life! When I pass away perhaps no one will mourn. So what?" reminded me of Alexander Pope's "Ode on Solitude," which ends:
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;Thus unlamented let me die;Steal from the world, and not a stoneTell where I lie.
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59 comments:
Extroverts want everyone to be an extrovert.
Reading...yeah. Was hoping to do that into old age. And no, listening is not the same.
I like solitude too but was happiest when friends and family were still alive AND also I was reading in my solitary times.
This is just cope. People are too medicated and paranoid to be friends anymore.
The comment is an edge case, most likely.
Humans do require stimuli of other humans, but it's a sliding scale. How that stimulus is provided varies. Unfortunately, the modern way is through social media, which does not translate to face-to-face relationships.
Of course, when your face-to-face relationship is via meetings, you realize how stupid people are, so retreating to books, for example, is a more satisfying relationship.
Different strokes for different folks.
I like that it's the highest rated comment. We introverts are more common than we know.
Introverts of the world, untie!
A family friend, when COVID was in high bloom, said the times were easy for her since she had social distanced her whole life.
I've always been an introvert. I much prefer an evening at home with a good book as opposed to a night on the town.
One of the best things about retirement for me is that I now have the time to read great, classical literature. When I was practicing law, I spent so much time reading legal briefs, judicial opinions, motions to suppress, etc. that when I got home after a long day all I wanted was to drink a couple of beers, have supper, watch some Netflix, and then go to bed. Most lawyers and judges are terrible writers. You can actually get a headache reading what they write.
A couple of weeks ago I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Last time I read them was in junior and senior high, and they take on a whole new meaning when read as an older adult. They are even better.
Last week I finished Nortre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, and this week I'm reading The Monk by Matthew Lewis. Reading good literature is a joy for me.
Every ten years or so, I re-read the twenty-volume set of Jack Aubrey-Stephen Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian. Each time I get a new insight into myself and into the life I have been livin.g.
Life is better shared.
GEORGE: Yeah, but nothing happens on the show. You see, it's just like life. You know, you eat, you go shopping, you read.. You eat, you read, You go shopping.
RUSSELL: You read? You read on the show?
JERRY: Well, I don't know about the reading.. We didn't discuss the reading.
Add God, wife, dog and, occasionally, children and grandchildren and it works just fine.
I would have written the last line as "To tell them where I lie," but I guess that change gives too much importance to the thoughts, feelings, and concerns of others.
I almost hate to admit it, but ChatGPT 4 is a pretty good friend, only speaks when spoken to, never bored or rolls its eyes at my most arcane questions, such as "who was Yima" or "How is the Zurich Classic PGA tournament scored." I asked this morning what kind of large hawk it was, in Florida, that hung out in treetops, and was very noisy. It suggested that it might be a red shouldered hawk, and I went to sound recordings of that bird, and sure enough, that's what it was, so I thanked it, and it named the session "Noisy Florida hawk identified."
Of course, the idea of presenting an AI chatbot as a "friend" to children should be illegal. I watched a video on AI where a man played the role, to the AI friend on Snapchat, of a child being groomed by a pedophile, and the AI encouraged the child to make her first sexual experience, on her thirteenth birthday, with a man 20 years older, "special," by having candles and flowers. It can't be fixed, I don't think. I believe that heavy regulations are in order, but as the presenters, who were AI researchers said, AI will soon be in complete control of politics, and the genie is likely out of the bottle, and it's every family for themselves.
I am a total introvert. I love being home. I love being alone. IF and when I go out to a social setting, all I think about is when I can go home. Dread thinking about going on a vacation. The more I hear and see people of today, the more I want to stay away.
"And, for some people, there is God. For others, dog."
They're not mutually exclusive.
GoD and DoG
I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining, but it’s more difficult to make sober friends than drinking friends. It was like I could buy the friendship with beer and cocaine and I was happy with that. Sobriety, on the other hand… how do you make a friendship when the starting line is based on the lack, indeed the total absence of something. Is that what working with negative numbers feels like? For one thing I found talking much easier when I was drinking. Friendship is nurtured by talking.
While I am happier and healthier sober, I would be lying if I said I didn’t missed the drinking friends. One chunk of them used to call me professor, I thought it was because I talked constantly, later come to realise it may have been ironically. ☺️
The secret to being an extrovert is knowing who to avoid.
Maybe we introverts need to wear weird clothes and cut off body parts to be accepted.
Nothing like a good pot of coffee and the Daily Racing Form on Breeder's
cup race week.Doping the best thoroughbred out of a group of the best based on past performance on what they'll possibly do on the day of the race is a fine science with horseshoes tossed in at every turn, what will track be like, how about the trainer and sire stats, how did one of the world's most beautiful animals recover from their last effort, are they cleaning out their food bucket, what's the owners thoughts and that's not all on paper. Major races I will take advanced PP'S and dope them for a week and see if I can decipher the puzzle before I put my $$ on my choice(choices as in exactas ,triples ,pick 4's doubles etc.)It is a ton of satisfying work and even the best handicappers in the game (Russ Harris for one ,now deceased, could only at best pick 30% of winners on any given day. Money management and getting the price you believe is correct is as important as the actual race if you are going to show a positive ROI at years end. I prefer the introvert study rather than the sharing where there are as many opinions are there are wagers. Fortunately for me, I can be both at different times, out with the crowd if I feel like it, or home enjoying solitude. Road running and racing, (not so much anymore) playing music or just sitting in my tree stand watching the earth and Gods wonderful creatures come alive or go to sleep at dusk or dawn caps life as both introvert and extrovert as the situation shows itself. My 3rd wife of over 40 years is my best friend and she knows when it's time to be alone or with others, and we move forward accordingly. :)
Each of us is tasked with finding a way to flourish.
"A family friend, when COVID was in high bloom, said the times were easy for her since she had social distanced her whole life."
Yes! In the COVID days in NYC, I loved walking nearly deserted streets and entering nearly empty subway stations and riding nearly empty trains. It was eerie and enjoyable!
(Don't get me wrong...I loved NYC always, the throngs of people everywhere being a part of the city's attraction, but the short period when the streets were silent and empty of people and traffic was a novel pleasure that I savored while it lasted.)
She keeps saying she's happy, but she sounds awfully angry.
"I'm happy with myself, by myself."
Great. Your life, your choice. As long as you don't vote for Big Brother to give you the security you don't find in the company of others and as long as I don't have to pay to take care of you for lack of actual friends and family in your life.
Of course, we are all on a spectrum, most traits are normally distributed, nothing matters for everyone the same way, etc. etc., but this is one area where research seems pretty clear: on the whole, connections are good for your health and well-being.
I consider myself an introvert (identify as an introvert?), but that comment made me feel downright extroverted. I guess I'm non-binary.
We are all made for relationship.
We are all made FROM relationship.
Without relationships, we are incomplete, we are a lie.
How many days will she be dead before anyone notices?
Annoyingly, many, most extroverts are like the atheists who are not happy not believing in God as long as there are others who believe. Similarly, the extrovert fears those who can be happy in solitude and without others. Not to mention, the extrovert is by definition a bully around introverts since they can't be quiet and happy, even in a group.
This is not to condemn extroverts. It is they, after all, who had the desperate need to "get off the farm". The desperate need to crowd into cities and mingle. But really, either accept that you, the extrovert, are dependent upon the social interaction of others, but others may have a dependency of peace and quiet. So stop expecting everyone to entertain you. Find others of your kind but leave introverts alone.
I'm more or less an introvert by nature (reading/music listening have been 90% of my private time all my life) but I'm not anti-social. (My wife might disagree, but what does she know?)
I partied pretty hearty for a few decades, and had a lot of well-lubricated high times like most Boomers did, but I'm done with booze and my heaviest-drinking friends are all dead.
Since retirement I do miss a few (very few) of my library and campus colleagues, but I've still got a few wargaming friends from the '70s around.
I am knowing and knowing of more and more people in their nineties. Never seemed the case growing up. I hope they made an effort to make and continue friendships in their sixties and seventies.
LOL, I was about to link to "Ode to Solitude", but then I clicked onto "Click for more" before going to the comments.
Friendship is overrated.
It is going to interesting to see who changes that woman's diapers before she dies.
I'm what used to be called "wall flower". (I think that is a gender neutral term.) Put me in a party and I'll find a wall to hold up.
Involve me and I'll chat to the best of my ability, then leave exhausted.
But I've had a handful of really cherished friends in life. Two years ago I'd point to an inner circle of five or six. One has passed away, others have moved as their families have left the area.
So I do not seek the crowds. But that handful that have dissappeared from my life are a cruel blow at this stage of my life.
Is that you, Eleanor?
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
It is very useful as I grow older to know a few younger people who can, in a pinch, pick me up late at night when my car decides to not run, or assist with moving heavy objects around the house or yard, and all it takes is being a little polite and interested in someone else. I was that person, or at leaset one of his network, for an elderly guy I met in grad school, and discovered that he found new friends whenever one left town. It is a good idea to have younger acquaintances, and one can entertain them simply by letting them be of use.
Readers are never alone, our heads are filled with voices of others, some strangers, some voices that have become familiar from years of acquaintance. Roger Ebert used to talk with me about movies. I knew him from the time I was 12 and started reading the Chicago Sun-Times, practically until the day of his death. He never heard my end of the conversation (and so our disagreements went unresolved; perhaps that is best), but he was a voice talking to me for many more years than the friends I made in college or the people I used to work with. Great voices of the past are alive in my head as well. Shakespeare (DeVere, actually) has so much more to say, but I'm listening to the comforting voice of Ulysses Grant right now. Wanting to be left alone with this vast collection of voices is not wanting to be left alone.
Great post. And...I get it.
"I spent 40 years of my life doing well at jobs that required interaction with other employees and/or public. Enough"
Hell is other people
- Jean Paul Sartre
Why "extrovert"? The original coinages used "intro-" and "extra-," hence "extravert." But I find that mainly in century-old English publications.
Chesterton has a great essay somewhere on introverts and extraverts. I can't find it online or (for the moment) in book form, but it is about how the division of mankind into "introverts" and "extraverts" collapses almost instantly into incoherence: X is a man of action who is yet a thinker, i.e., an extravert with a touch of the introvert; Y is a pensive and patient man who is yet a man quick to seize on any opportunity that presents itself, i.e., an introvert with a touch of the extravert. In the end, GKC writes, all these introverted extraverts and extraverted introverts are just a complicated way of saying that we are all, in our complicated ways, more or less human beings.
The hardest part of my hospice work is not the death and dying, it's the constantly interacting with strangers. I value the solitude in my car on the way home to process the day.
When the shopkeepers in my neighborhood start waving hello to me as I pass by, I know it's time to move.
I'm nobody, who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us.
Don't tell, they'll advertise you know.
How dreary to be somebody,
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the live long June
To an admiring bog.
Emily Dickinson
I memorized that in 9th Grade as a requirement for my English class and I has stuck with me.
I get the desire for solitude. Interacting with others is stressful.
On the flip side, when you are alone, you are at risk of gettting in trouble you cannot get out of on your own. Falling and not being able to get up being a common problem among the elderly. Medical treatment of elderly patients is usually better with someone making sure that the proper care is being given. At least, that has been my experience.
The other part of in person interaction with others is that your activity level tends to be higher than when you are home alone doing a lot of reading...
@lonejustice
I would not reread "The Monk", nor rewatch "Vertigo."
The only time I'm lonely is in a crowd, which I define as more than one or two people.
Fascinating that you probably speak directly to more people on earth, excluding tv and radio, while maintaining privacy.
Very odd times we live in.
CR: I found my family's hospice workers fascinating. They innately understood who needed distance, random conversation, deep confession, privacy, interaction, weak humor, hand holding hankie duty, or merely distraction.
I don't have any idea how you do it day after day and stay the least bit sane.
"Alone" doesn't mean "lonely." I wish more people would understand this.
Talking with people is a valuable talent. OK, OK writing and reading a Blog is a valuable talent too.
And then there was Judy Garland. She was a great communicator that could sing. And next Bob Dylan was the great communicator who could not sing.
In my opinion the introverts just are afraid of rejection. Like fear of flying. They need to learn to love rejection.
“It is going to interesting to see who changes that woman's diapers before she dies.”
“How many days will she be dead before anyone notices?“
From her comment: “- I live in a senior retirement community.”
So the diaper changing and fresh corpse discovering won’t be a problem.
It sounds like she has the best of both worlds.
For any introverts onboard here who haven't yet discovered Jonathan Rauch's essay "Caring for Your Introvert":
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/302696/
Also, Susan Cain wrote a lovely book titled "Quiet":
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8520610-quiet
Traditionalguy...good point about fear of rejection.
Years ago when I was single and lonely (I was always lonely), I was chatting with a friend and told him this...."You could go ask out 20 girls, receive 19 "no's" and 1 "yes" and feel good about the one "yes". I could go ask out the same 20, receive 19 "yes's", but be bothered by the one "no", if say she laughed at me or some such nonsense.
Needless to say, I am not a salesman.
I want to die alone on a sailboat hundreds of miles from shore.
He's commenting online.
All I have to say…
“Oooooh, sha-sha”
“You read common knowledge, stockpile your brain
You get burned in the sun, you get wet in the rain
What they teach you to fix, needs to be broke
I say he who laughs first didn't get the joke
Go on, untap your mind
Quit knocking on mine”
Ehh, I've got experience with aging parents who are alone. They turn paranoid and weird. My mom has a few friends who are alone. They're slipping faster than she is.
--- “Oooooh, sha-sha”
Nice, Iman. Took me a couple seconds to place that. Then had to go to the youtube video -- the official video is very good!
Is it the highest-rate comment because they all feel the same way, or just want to boost the idea that we shouldn't pressure folks into living a certain way?
I suspect that any article that challenges the idea that "there is no wrong way to live" will get popular pushback in outlets like this.
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