How often are you alone? I mean truly alone, without your spouse or a companion, without your phone or a television set, with nothing to fill your time but you and your innermost thoughts?
For some people, these moments of pure solitude are not periods to be avoided, but moments to be sought after. Because rather than see these empty and quiet spaces as voids to be filled, they view them as sanctuaries to be savored.
One such person is the travel author and novelist Pico Iyer. In his most recent book Aflame: Learning from Silence, he points to the problem he faces and that we all face from time to time:
I’m too caught up in my own schedule, my seeming busyness. Like someone who plays the radio all the time and claims never to hear the sea.
As a remedy, over the past few decades, Iyer has made more than one hundred journeys to a small Benedictine hermitage high above the sea in Big Sur, California. He stays for days at a time, usually in a tiny cottage, with virtually no communication with the outside world. It’s here he finds the soul-quenching solitude and silence he needs to stay sane.
Iyer believes that by stepping away from “the clamor of the world,” he gains a deeper understanding of himself and the people he loves. Through these quiet moments of self-reflection, he prepares himself to engage more meaningfully with the world and those around him.
It’s not selfish to want moments of solitude.
Striking a similar chord to Iyer, in Stillness is The Key, modern-day philosopher Ryan Holiday tells us that “solitude is not just for hermits, but for healthy, functioning people.” He writes that we occasionally need “to disconnect in order to better connect with yourself and with the people you serve and love.”
Holiday points out that the Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has for years taken a “think week” twice a year. He spends seven days alone in an undisclosed cabin in a forest, without business associates, family members or a smartphone at his side. “There, physically removing himself from regular interruptions, he can really sit down and think.” He emerges recharged and refocused.
The lure of escaping the world isn’t something new.
In the book Silence, Simplicity and Solitude, David A. Cooper explains that since the earliest days of humankind, a weekly period of solitude and reflection wasn’t a luxury. It was an integral part of life. The frantic pace of modern life, with its packed schedules that allow little time for contemplation or self-reflection, is a stark departure from the past.
Cooper writes that the need for solitude may be something we’re hard-wired for. It’s a part of our ancestral heritage that has been lost in the noise of the modern world, much to our detriment. In his words:
The busy life we lead, our calendar filled with business obligations, social activities, or family interaction several days a week, is a relatively new phenomenon for humans. Missing for most people in today’s world is the weekly period of solitude and reflection that was an integral part of life for thousands of years.
Of course, while we all might like to escape to a cabin in the woods or a cottage overlooking the ocean, many of us don’t have the funds or free time to pull this off. Here Cooper reminds us that “a good solid retreat can be accomplished in our own mind.” All we really need are two things: solitude and silence.
You can schedule a retreat close to home—or in your home.
Sure, it’s nice to travel for a night or two away from home to a place that feeds your soul. But if that’s not possible, try a two- or three-hour mini-retreat. Consider taking a nature hike or finding a quiet place at home where you can dim the lights, unplug from all your devices, and simply spend time in quiet contemplation. Holiday advises us that:
Each of us need to put ourselves, physically, in the position to do that kind of deep work…even if only for a few stolen hours…where we can think and have quiet and solitude. We have responsibilities. But they will be better for our temporary disappearance. We will carry back with us the stillness from our solitude in the form of patience, understanding, gratitude and insight.
When we stop to disconnect and recharge, away from the demands of everyday life, it has a way of rejuvenating us. As Cooper suggests, these periods of solitude enable us to “develop the light within us to bring into the world and yet not get caught up in the world.” You gain the capacity to be more deeply present and engaged with others. You return to the world not merely rested, but anchored more deeply in the life that is uniquely yours.
If you enjoyed this story, you might also like “The Lost Art of Being Alone.”
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