Aloneness

Being alone is not the same as being lonely. Lonely is sad whereas alone is just plain crazy... or so the world around me insists on telling me. Why can't people understand how lovely it is to spend time alone? Am I alone (that word again) in enjoying my solitude?

There are amatuer shrinks who insist on believing that being alone is a sure sign of clinical depression. A childhood friend who moved away from Hyderabad called me recently and during the course of the conversation asked me about other friends we both knew. I said I wasn't meeting them as much nowadays, in fact, I was spending a large part of my time alone. To say that she was shocked would be an understatement. She was beyond shock. And this girl knows me real good. Knows that I'm not much of a talker and do not like to socialize. But this didn't stop her from giving me a half hour lecture, LONG DISTANCE, about how I should be going out more and enjoying. Nevermind the fact that I was trying to say that I enjoy my alone tmes.

Why is it that being alone is considered to be a crazy thing to do? What if I prefer my own company rather than being in the middle of people and still being lonely?

I'm happy alone. I like my books. I like my world. I like my thoughts. I like wandering around in my head behind closed eyes. I'm not depressed. I am not crazy. I will not commit suicide. And I hate the question which goes "Are you alright?" just because I prefer to spend time by myself. No, I am not alright and I probably will not be alright in the middle of a chattering, singing, dancing group of people either. Thank you for asking.

I'd like to think of myself as an e-cluse rather than a recluse. I spend a lot of time online. Some of it with friends, some of it reading. I like it. Is that bad? I don't like visiting relatives. The online world has a lot of like-minded people. So what if they're living in Egypt or Dubai or Timbuktoo (is there really such a place)?

Alone works for me. Is it really that bad?

Needed to get that off my mind... now for the quotes. :p

"Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile: Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again."

Emile M. Cioran (French philosopher, b.1911)

"What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be."

Ellen Burstyn

"Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone."

Paul Tillich (German born American theologian and philosopher, 1886-1965)

"I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

and finally...

"With a rubber duck, one's never alone."

Unknown