Solitude

[reasonvemotion]

Why be alone.

Talking is often a torrent for me, and I need many days
of silence to recover from the futility of words.
Solitude is the fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Carl Gustav Jung

I am not advocating Buddhism where you sit and empty yourself until there is nothing left and then you start levitating because you are weightless and have become nothing, an empty shell.

Some people are so used to solitude with themselves that they never compare themselves to others but spin forth their monologue of a life in a calm, joyous mood, holding good conversations with themselves, even laughing. Nietzsche

"The key to a stable solitude is what psychology simply calls self-esteem. One of the reasons Nietzsche inveighs so vigorously against authority and tyranny, even against society and popular morality, is society's constant attempt to destroy individual self-esteem and capture it for its own uses. The result is alienation and the fragmentation of self, with all its attendant psychological problems. Solitaries must recognize this and strengthen themselves against it".

Do our brains need noise to maintain sanity. How many of us have the television on whilst reading a book. There are many cultures that recognize the value of solitude as a means to look inwards, but in Western civilization it may be thought that spending time alone is "unhealthy" and since humans are considered social beings, it is argued by some psychologists that meaning can only be obtained in a relationship with another person.

I believe there is a power in solitude.

[The Voice of Time]

Solitude is a way to avoid distractions, and is essential to concentrating our mental capabilities. Like to sleep and be awake, the one is a place for maintenance and sorting what has been put inside your head, while the other is for input.

The value of solitude does not depend merely on the person you are, but also the person you want to be. Some people have over-developed needs for solitude coming from social problems that may or may not be apparent on the surface. Even the most socially developed person on the outside, might have this problem on the inside, because their social interactions is a façade instead of an open source of information about the individual.

Some people, like me, can also be very intense with other people, quickly exhausting them mentally (I often get this with other people I know as well, where your mind simply gets so much information it starts leaking it and can't process it fully), and this can drive them to either confine themselves in solitude, or seek less intense interactions.

For individuals who do not engage in intense situations, they may be able to sustain longer periods of social interaction without needing to resort to solitude (typical for people who are "glued" to each other but do not demand much of each other), however, if they do not have very intense social interactions and still confine themselves a lot, this is a pretty sure sign of weak social development both internally and externally, as they likely do not know how to utilize other people (the distance between themselves and other people is unnaturally long for somebody who shares the same environment, like country, city, village, neighbourhood, etc., even if they don't speak the same language in which case they should rationally try to familiarize themselves with their social environment more in order to make possible future problems either arising from social situations, or which require social aid to solve)

[Skip]

Our need for company and our need for solitude varies greatly - not only from one person to the next but in the same person from one week to the next - but we all do need both in some predictable proportion.

Sensitives (people who engage intensely with their environment, are strongly impacted by relationships and events) need more down-time than sociable or dominant personalities. Depressives, bipolars, Aspergers and autists need more rest between encounters than people currently in emotional equilibrium. Someone recovering from a physical illness or bereavement or trauma needs more time alone for damage control. People taking difficult academic courses or training for an important contest need extra time to process new information and skills, rehearse mentally, and to recover after an exceptional effort. And so on - it depends on how much repair and/or maintenance the psyche requires at any given time in one's life.

Some psychologists are concerned that the electronically connected generation of children will develop serious problems due to lack of time alone: to reflect on experiences, to store and index long-term memory, to compare and evaluate information; to formulate responses, opinions and convictions; to discover gaps in their knowledge and decide how to fill them; to know their own tastes, abilities and limitations.... for general introspection, planning, and daydreaming.

[thedoc]

There is a common statement that starts "I don't like people who . . and then proceds to state some words, action, or thought that happens to annoy the person making the statement. I've decided to just cut it to the most basic form, "I don't like People."

[The Voice of Time]

Depressives and bipolars and autists need more rest between encounters than people currently in emotional equilibrium.

This is not always true, and I'm very sceptical of the "need" for those who are depressed to actually have to rest, and that it's not instead a matter of them experiencing the wrong sorts of intensity. I actually think intensity targeted at special areas of their psyche can act as enablers instead of disablers. What depressed people more likely cannot stand too much of, is conversation or engagement that requires a lot of intentional interest taking in things that are not natural interests to that person. Which is why depressed people for instance might be more inclined to get aggravated by small-talk, the disinterest of other people, and might be more inclined to leave a social situation in escape of it.

I have a suspicion that targeted "bombardments" of intense experience can in fact make miracle cures on the depressed, however, because of the complexity of people, it's hard for me to find evidence for my suspicion, as it would require a form of in-depth knowledge of the kind of individual you are dealing with, that few people have, and you need the opportunity which may be lacking as well.

An example however could be how finding love can bring a person out of depression if that love is balanced enough and not ridden with problems.

[Skip]

This is not always true, and I'm very sceptical of the "need" for those who are depressed to actually have to rest, and that it's not instead a matter of them experiencing the wrong sorts of intensity.

Granted, I only have direct personal contact with two clinically depressed patients, but their experience is consistent with the statement, as is what I have heard them say about the other members of their support group. After every two to seven (depending on several measurable factors) days of social interaction, they feel exhausted; need solitude and extra sleep. If forced to encounter other people in that state - any other people, in any situation - they're likely to become silent, flinch from physical contact, hide in a corner, cry or even throw up.

I actually think intensity targeted at special areas of their psyche can act as enablers instead of disablers.

The right kind, at the right time, done the right way, yes. Not just throwing them in without a safety net.

What depressed people more likely cannot stand too much of, is conversation or engagement that requires a lot of intentional interest taking in things that are not natural interests to that person. Which is why depressed people for instance might be more inclined to get aggravated by small-talk, the disinterest of other people, and might be more inclined to leave a social situation in escape of it.

Possibly. But not all depressives are alike, in the depths and cycles of their illness, in their personal strength and stamina, in the preferences or in their social skills.

I have a suspicion that targeted "bombardments" of intense experience can in fact make miracle cures on the depressed,

I hope you're not a shrink! They used routinely to prescribe ice-baths, too, and electroshock. Miracles probably happened: the one patient in a thousand who could actually benefit from such extreme treatments improved, while some other patients, in order to avoid any more treatments, pretended to be cured, then quietly went away and arranged a fatal accident.

An example however could be how finding love can bring a person out of depression if that love is balanced enough and not ridden with problems.

Love doesn't cure depression, but makes it easier to manage. Any support does, and so does approval, a readily available sounding-board and a sense of security. The issue that depressives most need to resolve is control. Getting control over one's life: being able to decide how to organize practical matters as well as what's the best way for that individual to cope with the illness. That requires a higher level of self-esteem and confidence than depressives typically have, or can muster all alone. A loving other person can help greatly with all those issues. Result: the depressive functions so much better that an outsider can't tell when their cycles are dipping or rising. The spouse can - and compensates.

[The Voice of Time]

Can you not be depressed by a lack of love?

Isn't it then presumable that getting love will remove the depression in its entirety? I think, that given the love is powerful, it should.

While I agree with control, it is more a matter of practical than actual solutions. Because getting control usually means altering your own circumstances to a large degree, but then you are also changing the game you are playing. The actual solutions I think are more bound to the source of the depressions.

Insecurity can stem from a lack of friends, and while you can "seize control" and just aggressively pursue finding friendship or find some kind of rigid peace in solitude, I think your first and primary source of cure would be to find somebody who wanted to be your friend, not because you were aggressively trying, but because you happened to meet and happened to be naturally inclined to each other.

[Skip]

Can you not be depressed by a lack of love?

No. One can be unhappy for any number of reasons, including lack of or loss of or yearning for or being deceived in love.
Depression is an illness with still incompletely understood causes and - thus far - no cure.

While I agree with control, it is more a matter of practical than actual solutions.

I take it the distinction between practical and actual means symptom management vs. cure. If so, yes.

Because getting control usually means altering your own circumstances to a large degree, but then you are also changing the game you are playing.

But that's exactly what is so difficult for most depressives. They feel helpless to change anything and when they try, even a small setback can seem like a major failure, thus reinforcing the feelings of inadequacy. It's a difficult cycle to break. Each effort at changing the behaviour or environment costs them far more than a similar effort would cost a healthy person. That's why they need extra time to regroup and contemplate the results and set the next goal.

Insecurity can stem from a lack of friends

I rather think it's more likely to be the other way around. Depression is a complex state: anxiety and insecurity, self-blame and lack of confidence, helplessness, inertia, fatigue, cyclic sadness are all strands woven together. Where they originate, you can't possibly know, even of yourself, let alone another person - conjectures and educated guesses are about the bet we can do. We can imagine (or visualize) separating out one particular strand of feeling in order to address it, but this:

... you can "seize control" and just aggressively pursue finding friendship

is out of the question for depressives. The most they can aggressively pursue is opportunities to exercise a talent, where they might encounter like-minded people, one of whom might be attracted to them.

or find some kind of rigid peace in solitude,

"Isolating" it's called, and the counsellors are constantly warning against it.

I think your first and primary source of cure would be to find somebody who wanted to be your friend, not because you were aggressively trying, but because you happened to meet and happened to be naturally inclined to each other.

Well, doesn't that hold true for everybody, all the time? It's a matter of luck... and of one's own degree of attractiveness.

Anyway, even healthy people, no matter how much in love they are, have other sources of anxiety and sadness and frustration. And even if everything is hunky-dory in one's life, we still need time apart, to understand our own feelings, to hear our own thoughts, to figure out challenges at work, to study, to read, to stare at clouds... maybe even just to build a surprise birthday present for the lover.

[The Voice of Time]

I have been as close to any clinical depression as one could possibly be, on more than one occasion, and for me it was a clear cause of it, and when I hear people talk of it, they talk about causes and the causes makes sense, they stem from deprivations of essential human needs and, as we both agree, an inability to do something about it yourself, leading to you slowing down in all the areas where you can grow and prosper, or even destroy yourself with drugs and bad company.

I have no idea from where you get this idea that depression has some mystic cause we don't know about, that's absurd. People can be confused and not know their cause (which is likely an added reason for why depressions can continue at length), but that is not saying people are not able to find a clear cause with clear solutions. I did not know my own reasons myself before people started saying to me "Emil, are you confused?" and the looming realization that I was responsible for my own life (responsibility thrown at me which I had to deal with) instead of me being somebody who does what my parents tell me and who constantly tries to please other people (something I had to learn to stop doing in certain contexts as people usually hated me for it... typically) and the growing realization that I had actual power which was something I really learned to relish in my years up to adulthood (learning that what you do has effects and matters to others... going from being a kid nobody cares a shit about to somebody everybody suddenly loves and looks up to and so forth). It was slow, but the reasons were clear, and made perfect sense, and when I got them removed, I was relieved in the extreme...

I got out of my depressions through huge sacrifice on my own account (leaving my life and my past, which was all I had, behind me and even fighting it, fighting the people in it and so forth) after first having reached the deepest bottoms of despair where my own instinctual fears of death were put into question, but out of the despair a balance of meaninglessness grew (things stopped mattering as you worked it out and mastered the self-psychological-intellectual problems they posed) and, metaphorically speaking, I was reborn to shape my life anew, my values, my knowledge and my world-view. That was a case where I was all alone and had to drastically alter the game of life I was playing instead of subscribing to my born identity.

In every way I was clinically depressed. I had a period of alcoholism. I was on the very brink of suicide. I constantly experienced despair and fear. I often didn't want to do anything that had to do with duties or having a life at all.

I know exactly how it feels like to be clinically depressed and that's the conclusion doctors have made about it. And I know why it continued and didn't end. It was a constant struggle with a bad reality (state of affairs), and all I needed was to get rid of that reality and get a new one I could trust and depend on, and while many bumps were experienced on the way; the way out of depression was a way carved with clear solutions that had to be done in order.

1) I had to set strict criteria and rid myself of everything in my past that didn't meet the criteria. Here I lost many relations, and hugely distorted people's views of me for many.
2) I had to put forth and be clear on my own views and my own criticism of the state of affairs of my former life and the roles people played in it. This I had to do, to convince myself that the past was not okay, and was not a place I could ever go back to, and place everybody should move away from.
3) I had to get a friend, a deep friend, in which I could find my own humanity. And I found one, and I managed to preserve that one, and I managed to make a natural efficient friend-relationship with that one. With things in common, and a dyadic culture between us that distinguish us from the rest of the world and gives identity to both of us.
4) I had to learn how to be a grown person by strangers, I had to be open and find truth in the average opinion (at least from those I deemed "interesting" enough to give a good opinion, my former life consisted of plenty of people with very poor opinions... criminals, cowards, stupid people), not as a doctrine, but as data, as information, equipping me on knowing how to deal with people in a way I could myself say was a good way (which also means being an asshole at times... I just have to learn to be the right kind of asshole... think about the movie "anger management" for an amusing comparison xD). These things I felt had been neglected in my upbringing so I had to give myself a speedy new upbringing.
5) I had to set a direction for my life, I had to define my future and find my current position and path towards that future. While I realize it's common to not know where you are gonna go in the future and that this itself doesn't need to be a reason for despair, you usually can only do that if you already have a solid foundation in your life, whether it's a family or you're happy with just a simple life... having given up on my past, I had to found a new solid foundation for my life, which requires a temporary solution and a goal taking me towards a more solid future solution.

All these things, I have achieved (at various degrees of course), and it has given me great comfort to make that mastery. So when you speak in this manner as if depression is some mystic thing, you are dead on wrong. There may not be a general solution, because there is not a general origin. But I am pretty sure when I say, that every person has the potential for a clear solution, and that this can be found without the need for investing heavy amounts of scientific research.

It can be found by simply using your head and addressing your state of affairs and what about them must change in order for you to have a greater reason for prospering, and that may be really hard, especially if you are an idiot with little problem solving skills, but it's absolutely possible I promise you, in virtually every case. But sometimes, you need a push, I needed push from people around me, they needed to challenge me, although I challenged myself a lot as well because I reasoned that either I live a life of striving for success, or I don't live at all... that there's no middle ground.

(As a small last note, if a person is unable, as probably often is the case, that they don't know where they should be going in life, one could point out to them that this is in fact one of their central problems, and that this too has a solution, namely... experimentation. Trying out the different clothes of life until you find something that fits. And this is something you can engage them in doing, and something intense you can engage them in doing because you can give them a rapid rate of experiences, that even if they don't like it, they will still have found themselves in that situation and will be able to draw conclusions from it, and this is a good way of sorting their heads by filling it with distractions that can eventually land a golden ticket to a new life. And filling a depressed with distractions will help in the bad circuit thinking that depressed people often suffer from, it gives them mental tools to build their own ideas about things... taking them out of a poverty of the mind)

[Skip]

Okay.
Imperfectly understood and individual is not the same as "mystic", which isn't a word I use.
I'm happy for your clear and certain knowledge; happy that you found a solution; hope everyone finds it. I'm sure everyone can at least find the right path for themselves, though I'm far from sure they can all manage without a support structure or that they can all be cured, once and for all.

In any case, I still contend that all humans require solitude as much as they require social contact, whether they're sad or happy, but when they're sad, they need more time alone.

[The Voice of Time]

but when they're sad, they need more time alone.

This, and I presume you agree with me when you read me now (you probably were just writing hastily), is wrong because of course it's relative to the individual whether they like being alone or not when they're sad.

They might be less sociable when sad, because the sadness is a (temporary) obsession of minor or greater degree, but many people seek out just that, other people, when they are sad. But it really depends on the quality of your social relations, whether you have anybody you trust and find sufficiently comfortable with that you'd rather be with them than alone when you experience sadness.

I'm a person that find it hard to comfort myself with other people's presence when I'm sad, because I was trained in my life to have a dominant relationships with people I'm friends with (maintaining very intense and engaging relations that reinforce people's expectations of me to entertain their minds and explore the limits of the relations), thus not setting a precedence for me to be sufficiently engaged by another person (not that it never happens, but me being the engaging and driving force is more common), a property necessary for me to develop a consumer's confidence in my friendships, instead of what I have now which is more of a maker's confidence (that I can drive my relations to benefit for both of us).

[reasonvemotion]

What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

[The Voice of Time]

What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

It depends upon society. Some societies (more accurately: communities) consider it more alarming than others, and it may or may not be for a good reason.

In some social circles, being alone is part of the way things are, solitude might even be looked up to.

[danieltalis]

Solitude can be seen as being a tool. The tool of solitude. If One wishes to develop a sense of Self then solitude can be an excellent tool to achieve this. Mystics use solitude as part of a process to shift their consciousness. Being away from distractions is the first stage in the process of Inner Exploration.

[reasonvemotion]

VoT you are no longer that raw young man of yesteryear. May I take the liberty and say, I would have thought you would be the perfect example of a loner. It is accepted that solitude is embraced by a certain type of person, one who is most probably interested in intellectual pursuits, an observer. The central part of loneliness is not being separated from other people, it is more like being divorced from one's self and the alone time is fuel for life. There are people who want or need more attention than another person is willing to give and people who want you to hold their hand all the time, for loners, this would be a major deterrent and they will run like the wind to escape, as relationships are of secondary value to them. Being a loner is something that comes naturally to a person, it cannot be contrived.

"Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human."
— Aristotle, Politics