We’ve all heard it- we’re more connected than ever and, paradoxically, lonelier than ever.
The experts in the field have called for more connection and more community. Join a sports team, meet your coworkers for drinks after work, call your mom. And while I’m one of the first to argue that we have a real and dangerous crisis of community, I also have to agree with author Michael Easter that “in today’s increasingly hyper-connected and tribal society, where we define ourselves by the group or movement we belong to, it’s not a bad idea to occasionally be alone.”
Easter wrote The Comfort Crisis while while joining adventurer Donnie Vincent on a hunting expedition through the Alaskan backcountry. Easter uses his own experience with discomfort to lead into interesting interviews and studies about the science and benefits of boredom, loneliness, and general uncomfortablity, alternating between updates from the 33 day trip the reasons behind his feelings. The initial updates generally consisted of, I’m bored, I’m hungry, I’m cold, the weather is bad, and the food is scarce. I began wondering if he’s hallucinated the facts about the benefits of all this that he’s dropping in just to keep his spirits up, luckily he cites his sources.
In his chapter titled “150 People,” he describes the phenomena that humans tend to feel most comfortable in communities made up of roughly 150 people, despite our growing populations and urban landscapes. And despite the seeming survival benefit of living in urban communities that have food, shelter, hospitals, and other social services all within walking distance. He lists the following figures, 148.4, 150, 150-200, 125 representing the average population of hunter gatherer tribes, stone age groups, villages in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient military legions respectively. This magic 150 number is called Dunbar’s Number. He then lists this group of numbers- 112.8, 180, 153.5, 169. These represent the average population in Amish parishes in Pennsylvania, average army company in WWII, the personal network of the average American, and the number of real friends the average Facebook user reports having.
While these are the example of real life people we connect with, we often forget about the ceaseless chattering crowd of YouTube personalities, tv casts, podcast hosts, and Spotify singers we are surrounded by. Even when we’re alone, we’ve made sure we’re never truly alone. Easter discusses the discomfort he feels being truly alone for the first time as he was waiting alone for the helicopter to take him on the final leg of the trek to the starting point. “The realization that I am in a state of supreme solitude is both unnerving and freeing. Unnerving because if the weather changes… I’d be stranded for days. It’s freeing because without anyone else around, I am unbeholden to any societal standards and there’s no need to mold myself to the will of anyone else. I’m uncomfortable but untethered.”
Easter brings up the point that our discomfort with solitude could be how we’re conditioned. From childhood, our most common punishment is solitude. Go to you’re room, you’re grounded, stand in a corner, sit alone in a chair. When we get older, the same, more severe punishment, solitary confinement. Being alone almost solely means your ostracized from the group, something very scary to our primitive brains- being ousted from a group is a prehistoric death sentence- and also very scary to our teenage brains- being ousted from a group is a high school death sentence. However, choosing to be alone is not a punishment. It’s an opportunity. As Easter had described, the most freeing aspect of being alone is that we have no pressure to pretend to be anyone we’re not. Even without a camera on us, our digital use a two way street, while we give our views creators return theirs, their voice and thoughts and opinions influencing our own thoughts and feelings. We’ve inserted ourselves into a digital panopticon of our own creation, the only gates keeping in is our fear of being alone.
Because of this, we’ve lost our ability to be ourselves. Spending time alone has become like spending time with a stranger, uncomfortable and eerie. When we’re alone, we quickly turn to consumption to fill the gaps, whether that be content, food, alcohol, drugs, etc. However, when we focus inward, put the energy that we reserve for thinking about others back into ourselves, we’re able to create a deep inner world and connect with a truer version of ourselves.
This makes our connections with others richer in two ways. One way, Easter presents, is that when you are a fulfilled individual, your connections with others are deeper as you’re bringing a more grounded, vibrant, and aware person to the interaction. I’ll add that these relationships become deeper and more meaningful because of the old adage, distance makes the heart grow fonder. Like anything, when we remove something pleasurable from our lives, it only becomes increasingly pleasurable when we bring it back. If we’re able to truly enjoy and make peace with being alone, we will be thrilled to join a group of friends for dinner, and equally as thrilled to draw a bath and sit alone with our thoughts afterward.
The difference between being alone and solitude is situation and intentionality. Being alone, especially when you’re starved for meaningful connection, is unhealthy physically, mentally, and spiritually. If you feel like you don’t have a community, a group, or a friend, solitude won’t fix our human drive for interaction. The cure to being alone is to do what all the Ted talks and your grandma says, go make friends. However, the cure to loneliness is to make sure your best friend is with you wherever you go. Finding ways to get to know yourself, cultivating your relationship with your inner thoughts and feelings, and setting aside true moments of solitude to reflect and grow.
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