Many people do not like the feeling of loneliness. Where there is loneliness, there is sadness, doubt, alienation. But this is its value: it helps us to feel again our integrity and connection with the world.
What is loneliness? Everyone has their own answer to this question. For some, this state comes after a night spent in an empty house. Others may live in seclusion for months (for example, at polar stations). But most of us still do not like to be away from people for a long time.
Long-term isolation has many unpleasant and even dangerous companions – from severe depression to cognitive impairment with irreparable health consequences.
Psychologist Julianne Holt-Lustadt found that people who experienced social isolation consistently had a 30% increased risk of premature death. If loneliness is so destructive, why would anyone seek it?
Meanwhile, many poets, artists and philosophers spoke about the fruitfulness of time spent alone with oneself. Henry Thoreau, in his famous novel Walden, or Life in the Woods, sang of solitude.
“I find it helpful to spend most of my time alone. Society, even the best, soon tires and distracts from serious thoughts, ”he wrote. Thoreau described his own experience: he lived for two years in a secluded hut, providing himself with everything he needed. True, once a week he went to the city to dine with friends.
People tend to think creatively when they feel rejected.
The link between loneliness and creativity is hard to deny. “The life of a writer, when he is at his best, is spent in loneliness,” said Ernest Hemingway in his Nobel speech. “By getting rid of loneliness, he grows as a public figure, and often this is to the detriment of his work.” Mozart, Haydn, Goethe, Picasso, Tesla, Einstein, and many others reported on the insights that come during periods of solitude.
While loneliness can lead to painful introspection, doubts, and fears, it can help us understand the world better. In an experiment by psychiatrists John and Stephanie Cascioppo, participants who reported being lonely were more likely than others to respond to threat-related stimuli (we are talking about brain responses recorded by a tomograph). John Cascioppo suggested that such people are more responsive and perceptive, as they can subtly pick up changes in the environment and the behavior of others.
There is another possible explanation. Sharon Kim, an organizational psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, found that people tend to think creatively when they feel rejected. The most interesting thing is that there may not actually be any rejection. It’s just that the atmosphere of aloofness somehow helps us see what others are passing by.
From an evolutionary perspective, loneliness is an important survival mechanism, says developmental psychologist Pamela Qualter. It encourages us to seek the company of others like us, so as not to be left without food and protection.
Without a sense of loneliness, we will not know the joy of communication and living together. “It is no coincidence that there are many psychopaths among those who are not capable of this experience,” explains John Cascioppo.
The desire for loneliness can take many forms. Wandering around rented apartments, giving up long-term relationships, moving to another country – these actions may seem erratic and harmful, but they are associated with self-preservation.
The craving for loneliness is a defense mechanism that protects our personality from decay.
In the modern world, our “I” runs the risk of being dissolved in a huge number of social roles, statuses and situations in which we have to behave in a certain way. The result is alienation: we forget who we are, what we want and what we live for.
The craving for loneliness is a protective mechanism that protects our personality from disintegration, from being washed out under the pressure of an endless stream of “others”. Losing yourself, the ability to hear your own voice and distinguish it in the discordant chorus of other people’s voices, ultimately frightens no less than loneliness with all its pain and shortcomings.
It can be said that there is a paradox in our attitude towards loneliness. We consider it a blessing, but only when we ourselves seek it. We need it, like a cold shower, which washes away the dust and touch of other people from us, cleansing the pores and sharpening the senses.