10 ms·

Being Alone

267 points by wallflower 6y ago

Pamar 6y ago
Thanks for posting this - I wrote about solitude/loneliness in the past (and published the essay here, too) - I will add this to my page (http://pa-mar.net/Lifestyle/Solitude.html http://pa-mar.net/Lifestyle/Solitude.html) and also try to contact the author of the article.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  Wow, this is a really thoughtfully written page. Thanks for sharing it Pamar. I'll want to take some time to really digest your writing and synthesis of others' perspectives on the topics.
  - Pamar 6y ago
    Thank you! The most important resource is the book itself: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo26297655.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo26... - I only ruminated on it and provided some extra links at the end.
el_dev_hell 6y ago
You're a great writer. That was long but super engaging. What blog platform are you using? The visual breaks are nice.
- bobbiechen 6y ago
  The site is Squarespace - a few giveaways are the favicon, the  comment in the head section, and the fact that hitting escape opens the Squarespace login. This looks pretty different from the usual templates, so I would guess there's a lot of custom code for the visuals.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  Really kind of you. Thanks for saying so. Echoing bobbiechen — it's Squarespace, and this essay was designed as a page, not a blog post, which provided increased flexibility in the design, etc.. It's super robust if you break out of the standard templates.
deleted 6y ago
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papeda 6y ago
This might be described as "a blog post about mindfulness". That description would lead me to expect something trite and bad, but fortunately I enjoyed reading it. It reminds me of the following snippet from Within A Budding Grove: > And yet one did not find in Bergotte’s speech a certain luminosity which in his books, as in those of some other writers, often modified in the written sentence the appearance of its words. This was doubtless because the light issues from so profound a depth that its rays do not penetrate to our spoken words in the hours in which, thrown open to others by the act of conversation, we are to a certain extent closed to ourselves. (Also, I'm getting some SSL error from the "Tea With Strangers" website.)
- ankitshah 6y ago
  :) Happy to know that this exceeded your expectations. The passage you shared is beautiful, but it's not quite registering how the essay evoked it for you. Can you say more? Btw - thanks for the flag on the SSL error. Fixed the URL and it should be properly pointing to http://www.teawithstrangers.com http://www.teawithstrangers.com now
  - papeda 6y ago
    > The passage you shared is beautiful, but it's not quite registering how the essay evoked it for you. Can you say more? One thing I take away from the excerpt is that the person we present and feel ourselves as during interactions with others is not exactly the same as the person we are alone. There isn't necessarily an element of deceit to this. Instead, we should pay attention to both selves -- and to me much of your essay is about paying attention to the person we are when we're alone, and being aware of differences between the two selves, without necessarily needing to reconcile them.
    - all2 6y ago
      We are like a beam of light which changes depending on the lens through which we project ourselves. The final form changes based on the situation (lens). I think I would say we project different aspects of ourselves into lower dimensions (thoughts and words) depending on the transformation function (context into which we are projecting ourselves). You get a twofer of analogies today!
thevagrant 6y ago
Great article. In isolation, I learn a lot more about myself and develop an understanding. It becomes easier to see what I really need... and it is not much. Unfortunately there is always the pressure to go back to work, to fulfil obligations and participate in debt pressure of society.
akater 6y ago
For a non-technical text about a basic, broadly-appealing topic, this has disappointingly high level of mentions of something called “FaceTime”. I have not yet read it all but I already have doubts it's worth reading further after second mention if author just expects all readers to be on Facebook or be familiar with a particular program to connect to others, or with an experience of usage thereof.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  I'm sorry you're disappointed by the fact that I said "FaceTime" three times in a 6000 word essay about connection with oneself. The essay is not predicated on you using Facebook, having an iPhone, using FaceTime, Zoom, or any specific program, but I think that'd be pretty clear to you if you read it before commenting. If you are still skeptical about reading it, this twitter thread has thoughts and reviews of dozens of people who have actually read it: https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1264982479489732608 https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1264982479489732608
- jpxw 6y ago
  FaceTime is not a complicated concept. It’s a phone call but with video. I’m sure you already know this, even if you’re pretending not to (to look “cool” I guess). If the author explained every single word used, he’d be writing a dictionary and not an article.
  - akater 6y ago
    There may be different aspects to programs like this. They may provide calls, they may provide some other features that are significant to understand their influence on users but non-obvious to non-users. I never encountered FaceTime and I have avoided Facebook since I firnt saw it. Also, curiously, I've recently observed a group of like-minded people divided, in a fairly confrontational manner, unable to listen to each other, with one side being, according to my observanions, overrepresented on Facebook, compared to another, and the other overrepresented on Twitter. This can be attributed to “echo chamber” phenomenon, or to platform preference by leaders of opinions. But my null hypothesis now is, Facebook actually changes its users to being worse communicators, unlike Twitter, and it contributes to users' feelings of isolation, significantly. I'm sure details of means of communication matter.
ankitshah 6y ago
Hi there! Ankit here, the writer of Being Alone. Thanks so much for sharing this on HN. Appreciate the kind comments and thoughtful reflections here. Honestly, I didn't anticipate that my writing would find its way to HN—and certainly not the front page—so this is really a pleasant surprise. (By the way, if OP is seeing this, I'd love to know how you found the essay + also thank you directly for thinking to post it here.) If I can answer any questions about the essay, loneliness and connection more broadly, the practice of being alone, the website, Tea With Strangers (or anything else, really, I'm here for it :). I'm also reachable at by email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) and twitter.com/ankitshah. More about me and my background here: https://ankit.fyi/about https://ankit.fyi/about
- _nvs 6y ago
  This really resonated with me – thank you for sharing, Ankit :)
- kiddico 6y ago
  Do you have more questions you like to use for tea with strangers? I tried working through what my answer would be for them, and it felt like a good jumping off point for forced introspection. The one about a lie you tell often was particularly good lol.
  - ankitshah 6y ago
    Plenty more. I've written maybe 200-300 questions over the years (and asked thousands more). I'm thinking to publish more of them in a neat and useful format soon for easy access and use. Should be ready in the next 2-4 weeks. If you'd like to be notified when I do, my email list on the site might be the best bet (or just following me on twitter @ankitshah). Not sure I'll remember to come back to this thread to post.
    - zestyping 6y ago
      You might enjoy the Authentic Relating Games collected by Sara Ness at https://www.authrev.org/ https://www.authrev.org/. I've played a few and they have been deeply connecting.
cryptozeus 6y ago
Great write up , I was hoping for more information on how to connect with yourself. Btw your site tea with strangers seems to be down at the moment.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  My hope with the essay was primarily to provide a language, articulation and case to support the exploration of a relationship with self, but I definitely think it could use more substance in the area of "how to." Would love to know more of what you think though! What else do you think would be helpful that's missing from this? I've been thinking about writing something to supplement the essay with further resources, frameworks, and more tactical support for people who want to dig deeper into the essay. (Also thx for the heads up about the link! The site is up, but the link was bad. Fixed it. Should be properly pointing to http://www.teawithstrangers.com http://www.teawithstrangers.com now)
  - cryptozeus 6y ago
    I think I may be looking for you or other articles to hand me the easy way out to help with connect myself. It may be that I need to spend more time with myself in solitude and figure it out.
- inakarmacoma 6y ago
  I felt the same way. Arrived at the end, thinking... "an articulation that clear most come with some very concrete conclusions with advice." But I found the essay more an apt description of reality, with only hints of escaping towards improvement: "Does this resonate with you? Think about 'why' before grabbing your cellphone. Ask yourself some hard questions. Reflect. Respond.
harpratap 6y ago
To me it seems like many are just rediscovering Dharmic religions but in a modern context.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  You're right! So much of this essay can find a mirror in Vedic, Jain, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies (and numerous other schools of thoughts and philosophies). I don't think my ideas here are original. My hope was that this essay would find resonance amongst those who might have difficulty connecting with these ideas in more religious, spiritual, or philosophical contexts. It was one of my goals while writing this to make it as accessible and plainspeak as possible.
WhoIsSatoshi 6y ago
the topic is interesting but I found the article too lengthy. I do like the tea with stranger setup and get to know thyself concepts... but I feel the article could have had twice the impact if it had been half the length.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  I'm sure you'll find many articles and essays on solitude, connection and self knowledge that are efficient enough for your taste. I don't know that reading 6000 words on the subject suits everyone :)
jackfrodo 6y ago
This was an incredibly positive and deeply important read. This is something that I've dealt with all my life, but of course have felt more acutely these past few months. Thank you for writing this; I won't soon forget it.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  Means the world to read this Jack. Thanks so much for the kind comment. I'd love to know what parts of the essay resonate with you, what stuck, etc. Please feel free to reach out to me on email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) or twitter.com/ankitshah
farnsworth 6y ago
I'm really interested in the "Tea With Strangers" idea and looking forward to finding one, when lockdown is over, in the distant future. Semi-related, lately I've been looking for resources on how to have better and deeper conversations. I wonder whether anyone has any books that they've found helpful. I come from a very sort of buttoned-down sort of people who have trouble moving beyond surface-level small talk, and I've been trying to find ways to get people (and myself) to be comfortable opening up in conversation.
totetsu 6y ago
This process of observant conversation with others seems good for noticing the context and shape of yourself as a social human. I wonder if this kind of purposeful activity can be applied to spending time outdoors, with non-human things, to gain self awareness of what a human is. My musician friends tell me that if you think classical music is relaxing, you're not paying enough attention. Perhaps the same can be said about going for a walk.
- all2 6y ago
  I can't listen to classical music and do something else at the same time. It has to be onw or the other. Minimal techno, on the other hand, I can work to that.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  I think you're onto something here ;) An earlier draft of this essay had a whole section about communing with nature and what it meant to go for a quiet walk by yourself. At its core, this whole essay is an ode to paying attention to yourself, and part of paying attention to yourself is paying attention to the environment that you are a part of—the space around you, the sounds you hear, the stimuli affecting your thoughts, etc. etc. You might enjoy this little idea I've started called the Silent Hike Society. It's exactly what it sounds like, but here's an explainer: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18040571920037802/ https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/180405719200378... You may also resonate with this meditation on walking that I made a while back: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17846990011607079/ https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/178469900116070...
  - totetsu 6y ago
    This is a great idea.
- rimliu 6y ago
  A walk is just another way to medidate, at least for me. I've discovered long walks four years ago and they became my one of my favourite hobbies in a blink. There is some paradoxality in this: many of the walks are organized events where thoudsands of people take part. I however always go alone and do not take my headphones. So it is just me, dozens of kilometers of the road and some nice volunteers at checkpoints. Hours and hours of me being with myself. I think for the brain is kind of like the sleep, time to reorganize, recconect and clean-up, just while being awake. Our most popular organizer of such events, Trenkturas, come up with an idea during COVID lockdowns (going out was not forbidden, but public gatherings were and are still restricted): solo hikes. You select a route, a time slot, pay a couple of euros and get the link to the route, so you can follow it on your phone. This idea proved to be very popular.
starpilot 6y ago
If happiness comes from within, we should not care about any forms of injustice. Who cares if your people are being murdered or put in concentration camps, inside you can still be happy.
- inakarmacoma 6y ago
  All true at the same? Not mutually exclusive.
livealife 6y ago
While this is all sweet and positive stuff, my friends mostly are jerks who "Can't talk. WhatsApp only."
Animats 6y ago
I'm fine with being alone. Having to be alone for a year is kind of wearing, but not devastating. Beats dying. I really do miss land-line voice quality, though. Too many of my friends are into hands-free phoning, and hands-free plus cellular plus VOIP is only marginally understandable. Complete silence apparently bothers some people, but I've always found it restful.
- nicky0 6y ago
  Try and get them to use headphones for their hands free. If they have iPhones the default Apple ones work pretty well.
- amelius 6y ago
  I like to be alone, but I've found that it can cause health problems, particularly anxiety that fades away when I spend time with others. It's strange because I really prefer to be alone.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    I'd say it's not strange. Evolutionary we don't enjoy being alone (we're social animals). What happens is that through bad experiences/trauma etc we develop social anxiety and phobias, and prefer avoiding the unknowns of being with others - which is not a positive preference but rather a rationalised retreat.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  I wonder how many HNers ever experienced landline phone quality. Mobile phone quality seems to have become even worse lately. I wonder if this is partly due to handsets being optimised for use as a mini tablet rather than a telephone. Internet based voice communication is as bad as ever in terms of latency. Landlines provided just enough clarity but most important low enough latency to actually feel like you're talking to someone. I often think internet based voice would be better if we used half-duplex talking protocols (like a walkie-talkie).
- rimliu 6y ago
  > Complete silence apparently bothers some people I think this is related to the point the author makes: You need to find connection with yourself. I think that being in the silence, alone is where that connection is being made. And some people are so not used to it, that this scares them. I cannot otherwise explain people's desire to be constantly surrounded by some noise, be it TV, radio, music in their headphones, whatever. How about just sitting ten minutes in silence? Or even better, half an hour in the nature, without boomboxes and headphones? My other idea, which I cannot prove, that the state of the mental health in US is correlated to the point above. When introverts are looked upon as some sick weirdos, when there is a culture of constant superficial socializing, when deep discussions are replaced by knee-jerk reactions, profile picture frames, and putting on labels on things, and when you are still affraid to know yourself—surely this should come out sideways somehow. I single out US because I know no other country with so much push for the extrovert behaviour. I've spend a lot of time being alone while growing up and in my university days. It came at a cost, and I wish I had socialized a bit more back then, but overall I consider it to be enormous net positive thing.
deleted 6y ago
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fierarul 6y ago
How to be alone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs
- Lapland 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing!
all2 6y ago
I've been spending a lot of time alone lately. Partially because of COVID, and partially because I have "suddenly" become single. Sitting alone when emotions are running is so hard. I've spent a large portion of my life trying not to get trapped in the background noise of TV or headphones or social media. And now all I want is to run into those things. I understand avoiding those emotions is unhealthy. But being alone can hurt. A lot.
- telesilla 6y ago
  There are good online services where you can find someone to talk to. I'll go look for links I've used or recommended in the past and write back shortly. I hope things are ok with you.
  - all2 6y ago
    I am well enough. I have family and a few new friends I talk to on a regular basis. I pray almost constantly now. I've changed and grown a lot, so the pain has not been useless.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  When you fall over and graze your knee it hurts. But it heals. The brain is no different. You just have to give it time to heal. The good thing is you'll also come out stronger. You'll be better equipped for the next time someone hurts you, which is good because people are generally selfish and will hurt you. You can find communities of men online who will help you more.
- the_cramer 6y ago
  Same situation for me. I am single for a long time but recently many friends also break up contact more or less. They are founding families, building houses. I cannot really blame them. I am alone at home very often, most of the times it is okay, i don't really need someone in these times for talking and such. I'm not the big talker anyways. But there are some moments, especially in the evening, where the loneliness is just crushing. I always try to find a logical reason for this. In these moments i do not really feel the need for talking or meeting someone. It's a kind of fear to miss something because of the lack of friends. I'm for sure it's highly irrational and to this day I didn't find a definitve answer. Another observation i made is that these feelings are stronger when i'm hungry or thirsty. Sometimes, if i feel lonely i eat (i'm a twig, no worries). It seems to produce forgetti stuff in the body and the worries often go away. Browsing social media and stuff has the opposite effect. It raises the question "Why are the others having fun and friends and stuff?" Wouldn't recommend that (subjective) I'm sure there is a chemical explanation for all this, or an evolutionary, but for all ppl that feel like this: get your pizza! Of course this is all referring to the "negative" type of loneliness. There is another type which we may crave: "I want to go on top of that lonely mountain with nobody around me", "Let's go into the forest where no humans are going onto my nerves". This selective loneliness is a good one and should be looked for from time to time.
sulfur 6y ago
Maybe I make it myself too easy with that, but often when I read about loneliness and how to deal with it, it comes from people who have friends and a relationship. So it seems they are just missing that tiny little bit til perfection. Maybe my scale is a different one, but for me loneliness is when you don’t have all these social “basics“ to start with. It’s not about struggling to deepen existing connections, it’s having none at all.
- clarry 6y ago
  Yep, and all the solutions they can offer is "go to a meetup with like-minded people ROFL"... I guess it is that simple for them.
saargrin 6y ago
haha stop being alone by investing in relationship with your friends and having conversations with your friends ! wow thats brilliant insight
privethedge 6y ago
I'm alone and don't feel bad at all. Actually, I prefer to be alone. There are so many interesting things to do, so many interesting books to read, etc, I don't understand how someone can be bored. It's really strange to me that so many people suffer from being alone and feel lonely.
- cutemonster 6y ago
  I'm curious about how you spend the working day? (Office or remote? Alone the whole day?)
ontouchstart 6y ago
Since this is a tech forum, perhaps we can model "being alone" as an introspective state machine that has limited I/O. It is also interesting to see how apps want to be alone. A social network app like Facebook is useless when off-grid. But an immersive app like kindle can offer you hours of solitude.
deleted 6y ago
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267 points by wallflower 6y ago

Thanks for posting this - I wrote about solitude/loneliness in the past (and published the essay here, too) - I will add this to my page (http://pa-mar.net/Lifestyle/Solitude.html http://pa-mar.net/Lifestyle/Solitude.html) and also try to contact the author of the article.

ankitshah 6y ago
Wow, this is a really thoughtfully written page. Thanks for sharing it Pamar. I'll want to take some time to really digest your writing and synthesis of others' perspectives on the topics.
- Pamar 6y ago
  Thank you! The most important resource is the book itself: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo26297655.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo26... - I only ruminated on it and provided some extra links at the end.

el_dev_hell 6y ago

You're a great writer. That was long but super engaging. What blog platform are you using? The visual breaks are nice.

bobbiechen 6y ago
The site is Squarespace - a few giveaways are the favicon, the  comment in the head section, and the fact that hitting escape opens the Squarespace login. This looks pretty different from the usual templates, so I would guess there's a lot of custom code for the visuals.
ankitshah 6y ago
Really kind of you. Thanks for saying so. Echoing bobbiechen — it's Squarespace, and this essay was designed as a page, not a blog post, which provided increased flexibility in the design, etc.. It's super robust if you break out of the standard templates.

deleted 6y ago

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papeda 6y ago

This might be described as "a blog post about mindfulness". That description would lead me to expect something trite and bad, but fortunately I enjoyed reading it. It reminds me of the following snippet from Within A Budding Grove: > And yet one did not find in Bergotte’s speech a certain luminosity which in his books, as in those of some other writers, often modified in the written sentence the appearance of its words. This was doubtless because the light issues from so profound a depth that its rays do not penetrate to our spoken words in the hours in which, thrown open to others by the act of conversation, we are to a certain extent closed to ourselves. (Also, I'm getting some SSL error from the "Tea With Strangers" website.)

ankitshah 6y ago
:) Happy to know that this exceeded your expectations. The passage you shared is beautiful, but it's not quite registering how the essay evoked it for you. Can you say more? Btw - thanks for the flag on the SSL error. Fixed the URL and it should be properly pointing to http://www.teawithstrangers.com http://www.teawithstrangers.com now
- papeda 6y ago
  > The passage you shared is beautiful, but it's not quite registering how the essay evoked it for you. Can you say more? One thing I take away from the excerpt is that the person we present and feel ourselves as during interactions with others is not exactly the same as the person we are alone. There isn't necessarily an element of deceit to this. Instead, we should pay attention to both selves -- and to me much of your essay is about paying attention to the person we are when we're alone, and being aware of differences between the two selves, without necessarily needing to reconcile them.
  - all2 6y ago
    We are like a beam of light which changes depending on the lens through which we project ourselves. The final form changes based on the situation (lens). I think I would say we project different aspects of ourselves into lower dimensions (thoughts and words) depending on the transformation function (context into which we are projecting ourselves). You get a twofer of analogies today!

thevagrant 6y ago

Great article. In isolation, I learn a lot more about myself and develop an understanding. It becomes easier to see what I really need... and it is not much. Unfortunately there is always the pressure to go back to work, to fulfil obligations and participate in debt pressure of society.

akater 6y ago

For a non-technical text about a basic, broadly-appealing topic, this has disappointingly high level of mentions of something called “FaceTime”. I have not yet read it all but I already have doubts it's worth reading further after second mention if author just expects all readers to be on Facebook or be familiar with a particular program to connect to others, or with an experience of usage thereof.

ankitshah 6y ago
I'm sorry you're disappointed by the fact that I said "FaceTime" three times in a 6000 word essay about connection with oneself. The essay is not predicated on you using Facebook, having an iPhone, using FaceTime, Zoom, or any specific program, but I think that'd be pretty clear to you if you read it before commenting. If you are still skeptical about reading it, this twitter thread has thoughts and reviews of dozens of people who have actually read it: https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1264982479489732608 https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1264982479489732608
jpxw 6y ago
FaceTime is not a complicated concept. It’s a phone call but with video. I’m sure you already know this, even if you’re pretending not to (to look “cool” I guess). If the author explained every single word used, he’d be writing a dictionary and not an article.
- akater 6y ago
  There may be different aspects to programs like this. They may provide calls, they may provide some other features that are significant to understand their influence on users but non-obvious to non-users. I never encountered FaceTime and I have avoided Facebook since I firnt saw it. Also, curiously, I've recently observed a group of like-minded people divided, in a fairly confrontational manner, unable to listen to each other, with one side being, according to my observanions, overrepresented on Facebook, compared to another, and the other overrepresented on Twitter. This can be attributed to “echo chamber” phenomenon, or to platform preference by leaders of opinions. But my null hypothesis now is, Facebook actually changes its users to being worse communicators, unlike Twitter, and it contributes to users' feelings of isolation, significantly. I'm sure details of means of communication matter.

ankitshah 6y ago

Hi there! Ankit here, the writer of Being Alone. Thanks so much for sharing this on HN. Appreciate the kind comments and thoughtful reflections here. Honestly, I didn't anticipate that my writing would find its way to HN—and certainly not the front page—so this is really a pleasant surprise. (By the way, if OP is seeing this, I'd love to know how you found the essay + also thank you directly for thinking to post it here.) If I can answer any questions about the essay, loneliness and connection more broadly, the practice of being alone, the website, Tea With Strangers (or anything else, really, I'm here for it :). I'm also reachable at by email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) and twitter.com/ankitshah. More about me and my background here: https://ankit.fyi/about https://ankit.fyi/about

_nvs 6y ago
This really resonated with me – thank you for sharing, Ankit :)
kiddico 6y ago
Do you have more questions you like to use for tea with strangers? I tried working through what my answer would be for them, and it felt like a good jumping off point for forced introspection. The one about a lie you tell often was particularly good lol.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  Plenty more. I've written maybe 200-300 questions over the years (and asked thousands more). I'm thinking to publish more of them in a neat and useful format soon for easy access and use. Should be ready in the next 2-4 weeks. If you'd like to be notified when I do, my email list on the site might be the best bet (or just following me on twitter @ankitshah). Not sure I'll remember to come back to this thread to post.
  - zestyping 6y ago
    You might enjoy the Authentic Relating Games collected by Sara Ness at https://www.authrev.org/ https://www.authrev.org/. I've played a few and they have been deeply connecting.

cryptozeus 6y ago

Great write up , I was hoping for more information on how to connect with yourself. Btw your site tea with strangers seems to be down at the moment.

ankitshah 6y ago
My hope with the essay was primarily to provide a language, articulation and case to support the exploration of a relationship with self, but I definitely think it could use more substance in the area of "how to." Would love to know more of what you think though! What else do you think would be helpful that's missing from this? I've been thinking about writing something to supplement the essay with further resources, frameworks, and more tactical support for people who want to dig deeper into the essay. (Also thx for the heads up about the link! The site is up, but the link was bad. Fixed it. Should be properly pointing to http://www.teawithstrangers.com http://www.teawithstrangers.com now)
- cryptozeus 6y ago
  I think I may be looking for you or other articles to hand me the easy way out to help with connect myself. It may be that I need to spend more time with myself in solitude and figure it out.
inakarmacoma 6y ago
I felt the same way. Arrived at the end, thinking... "an articulation that clear most come with some very concrete conclusions with advice." But I found the essay more an apt description of reality, with only hints of escaping towards improvement: "Does this resonate with you? Think about 'why' before grabbing your cellphone. Ask yourself some hard questions. Reflect. Respond.

harpratap 6y ago

To me it seems like many are just rediscovering Dharmic religions but in a modern context.

ankitshah 6y ago
You're right! So much of this essay can find a mirror in Vedic, Jain, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies (and numerous other schools of thoughts and philosophies). I don't think my ideas here are original. My hope was that this essay would find resonance amongst those who might have difficulty connecting with these ideas in more religious, spiritual, or philosophical contexts. It was one of my goals while writing this to make it as accessible and plainspeak as possible.

WhoIsSatoshi 6y ago

the topic is interesting but I found the article too lengthy. I do like the tea with stranger setup and get to know thyself concepts... but I feel the article could have had twice the impact if it had been half the length.

ankitshah 6y ago
I'm sure you'll find many articles and essays on solitude, connection and self knowledge that are efficient enough for your taste. I don't know that reading 6000 words on the subject suits everyone :)

jackfrodo 6y ago

This was an incredibly positive and deeply important read. This is something that I've dealt with all my life, but of course have felt more acutely these past few months. Thank you for writing this; I won't soon forget it.

ankitshah 6y ago
Means the world to read this Jack. Thanks so much for the kind comment. I'd love to know what parts of the essay resonate with you, what stuck, etc. Please feel free to reach out to me on email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) or twitter.com/ankitshah

farnsworth 6y ago

I'm really interested in the "Tea With Strangers" idea and looking forward to finding one, when lockdown is over, in the distant future. Semi-related, lately I've been looking for resources on how to have better and deeper conversations. I wonder whether anyone has any books that they've found helpful. I come from a very sort of buttoned-down sort of people who have trouble moving beyond surface-level small talk, and I've been trying to find ways to get people (and myself) to be comfortable opening up in conversation.

totetsu 6y ago

This process of observant conversation with others seems good for noticing the context and shape of yourself as a social human. I wonder if this kind of purposeful activity can be applied to spending time outdoors, with non-human things, to gain self awareness of what a human is. My musician friends tell me that if you think classical music is relaxing, you're not paying enough attention. Perhaps the same can be said about going for a walk.

all2 6y ago
I can't listen to classical music and do something else at the same time. It has to be onw or the other. Minimal techno, on the other hand, I can work to that.
ankitshah 6y ago
I think you're onto something here ;) An earlier draft of this essay had a whole section about communing with nature and what it meant to go for a quiet walk by yourself. At its core, this whole essay is an ode to paying attention to yourself, and part of paying attention to yourself is paying attention to the environment that you are a part of—the space around you, the sounds you hear, the stimuli affecting your thoughts, etc. etc. You might enjoy this little idea I've started called the Silent Hike Society. It's exactly what it sounds like, but here's an explainer: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18040571920037802/ https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/180405719200378... You may also resonate with this meditation on walking that I made a while back: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17846990011607079/ https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/178469900116070...
- totetsu 6y ago
  This is a great idea.
rimliu 6y ago
A walk is just another way to medidate, at least for me. I've discovered long walks four years ago and they became my one of my favourite hobbies in a blink. There is some paradoxality in this: many of the walks are organized events where thoudsands of people take part. I however always go alone and do not take my headphones. So it is just me, dozens of kilometers of the road and some nice volunteers at checkpoints. Hours and hours of me being with myself. I think for the brain is kind of like the sleep, time to reorganize, recconect and clean-up, just while being awake. Our most popular organizer of such events, Trenkturas, come up with an idea during COVID lockdowns (going out was not forbidden, but public gatherings were and are still restricted): solo hikes. You select a route, a time slot, pay a couple of euros and get the link to the route, so you can follow it on your phone. This idea proved to be very popular.

starpilot 6y ago

If happiness comes from within, we should not care about any forms of injustice. Who cares if your people are being murdered or put in concentration camps, inside you can still be happy.

inakarmacoma 6y ago
All true at the same? Not mutually exclusive.

livealife 6y ago

While this is all sweet and positive stuff, my friends mostly are jerks who "Can't talk. WhatsApp only."

Animats 6y ago

I'm fine with being alone. Having to be alone for a year is kind of wearing, but not devastating. Beats dying. I really do miss land-line voice quality, though. Too many of my friends are into hands-free phoning, and hands-free plus cellular plus VOIP is only marginally understandable. Complete silence apparently bothers some people, but I've always found it restful.

nicky0 6y ago
Try and get them to use headphones for their hands free. If they have iPhones the default Apple ones work pretty well.
amelius 6y ago
I like to be alone, but I've found that it can cause health problems, particularly anxiety that fades away when I spend time with others. It's strange because I really prefer to be alone.
- coldtea 6y ago
  I'd say it's not strange. Evolutionary we don't enjoy being alone (we're social animals). What happens is that through bad experiences/trauma etc we develop social anxiety and phobias, and prefer avoiding the unknowns of being with others - which is not a positive preference but rather a rationalised retreat.
globular-toast 6y ago
I wonder how many HNers ever experienced landline phone quality. Mobile phone quality seems to have become even worse lately. I wonder if this is partly due to handsets being optimised for use as a mini tablet rather than a telephone. Internet based voice communication is as bad as ever in terms of latency. Landlines provided just enough clarity but most important low enough latency to actually feel like you're talking to someone. I often think internet based voice would be better if we used half-duplex talking protocols (like a walkie-talkie).
rimliu 6y ago
> Complete silence apparently bothers some people I think this is related to the point the author makes: You need to find connection with yourself. I think that being in the silence, alone is where that connection is being made. And some people are so not used to it, that this scares them. I cannot otherwise explain people's desire to be constantly surrounded by some noise, be it TV, radio, music in their headphones, whatever. How about just sitting ten minutes in silence? Or even better, half an hour in the nature, without boomboxes and headphones? My other idea, which I cannot prove, that the state of the mental health in US is correlated to the point above. When introverts are looked upon as some sick weirdos, when there is a culture of constant superficial socializing, when deep discussions are replaced by knee-jerk reactions, profile picture frames, and putting on labels on things, and when you are still affraid to know yourself—surely this should come out sideways somehow. I single out US because I know no other country with so much push for the extrovert behaviour. I've spend a lot of time being alone while growing up and in my university days. It came at a cost, and I wish I had socialized a bit more back then, but overall I consider it to be enormous net positive thing.

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fierarul 6y ago

How to be alone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs

Lapland 6y ago
Thanks for sharing!

all2 6y ago

I've been spending a lot of time alone lately. Partially because of COVID, and partially because I have "suddenly" become single. Sitting alone when emotions are running is so hard. I've spent a large portion of my life trying not to get trapped in the background noise of TV or headphones or social media. And now all I want is to run into those things. I understand avoiding those emotions is unhealthy. But being alone can hurt. A lot.

telesilla 6y ago
There are good online services where you can find someone to talk to. I'll go look for links I've used or recommended in the past and write back shortly. I hope things are ok with you.
- all2 6y ago
  I am well enough. I have family and a few new friends I talk to on a regular basis. I pray almost constantly now. I've changed and grown a lot, so the pain has not been useless.
globular-toast 6y ago
When you fall over and graze your knee it hurts. But it heals. The brain is no different. You just have to give it time to heal. The good thing is you'll also come out stronger. You'll be better equipped for the next time someone hurts you, which is good because people are generally selfish and will hurt you. You can find communities of men online who will help you more.
the_cramer 6y ago
Same situation for me. I am single for a long time but recently many friends also break up contact more or less. They are founding families, building houses. I cannot really blame them. I am alone at home very often, most of the times it is okay, i don't really need someone in these times for talking and such. I'm not the big talker anyways. But there are some moments, especially in the evening, where the loneliness is just crushing. I always try to find a logical reason for this. In these moments i do not really feel the need for talking or meeting someone. It's a kind of fear to miss something because of the lack of friends. I'm for sure it's highly irrational and to this day I didn't find a definitve answer. Another observation i made is that these feelings are stronger when i'm hungry or thirsty. Sometimes, if i feel lonely i eat (i'm a twig, no worries). It seems to produce forgetti stuff in the body and the worries often go away. Browsing social media and stuff has the opposite effect. It raises the question "Why are the others having fun and friends and stuff?" Wouldn't recommend that (subjective) I'm sure there is a chemical explanation for all this, or an evolutionary, but for all ppl that feel like this: get your pizza! Of course this is all referring to the "negative" type of loneliness. There is another type which we may crave: "I want to go on top of that lonely mountain with nobody around me", "Let's go into the forest where no humans are going onto my nerves". This selective loneliness is a good one and should be looked for from time to time.

sulfur 6y ago

Maybe I make it myself too easy with that, but often when I read about loneliness and how to deal with it, it comes from people who have friends and a relationship. So it seems they are just missing that tiny little bit til perfection. Maybe my scale is a different one, but for me loneliness is when you don’t have all these social “basics“ to start with. It’s not about struggling to deepen existing connections, it’s having none at all.

clarry 6y ago
Yep, and all the solutions they can offer is "go to a meetup with like-minded people ROFL"... I guess it is that simple for them.

saargrin 6y ago

haha stop being alone by investing in relationship with your friends and having conversations with your friends ! wow thats brilliant insight

privethedge 6y ago

I'm alone and don't feel bad at all. Actually, I prefer to be alone. There are so many interesting things to do, so many interesting books to read, etc, I don't understand how someone can be bored. It's really strange to me that so many people suffer from being alone and feel lonely.

cutemonster 6y ago
I'm curious about how you spend the working day? (Office or remote? Alone the whole day?)

ontouchstart 6y ago

Since this is a tech forum, perhaps we can model "being alone" as an introspective state machine that has limited I/O. It is also interesting to see how apps want to be alone. A social network app like Facebook is useless when off-grid. But an immersive app like kindle can offer you hours of solitude.

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