7 ms·

I believe "Loneliness" is a misnomer. The misery people feel when they are "alone" is not the lack of other people but the lack of connection. More precisely th

I believe "Loneliness" is a misnomer. The misery people feel when they are "alone" is not the lack of other people but the lack of connection. More precisely the disconnect with nature, oneself and to a lesser extend the community. A psychologist who studied loneliness said that the best remedy is time spend in the forest. If lonely people go and force themself to get around other people, they usually drag everybody down.

wenc 3y ago
Would be interesting to see this study. I personally feel more lonely in nature, especially in forests. I need the energy of big cities to feel a warm glow. I suspect I’m not the only one and there’s a large percentage of the population who are similar to me. When I used to live in small towns, I would have a strong need to periodically visit a big city to restore my emotions. I love the feeling of being in a crowd even if I never talk to anyone. I love the bustle and noise and potential for new encounters. Nature feels isolating to me. I wonder if I’m wired this way because I grew up in a big city. We’re wired to look for places where we can feel we’re “at home”, and that’s usually a function of childhood experiences.
- kentiko 3y ago
  I think I am same as you. I recently noticed that listening to birds singing make me feel incredibly melancholic. I was very lonely for a few years. I was listening to the singing a lot when I was at my place, and now I have associated birds singing and loneliness. It is unfortunate that something so calming and beautiful now makes me feel sad. It has become the sound of loneliness to me.
- dotxlem 3y ago
  I agree that it might be due to where we grow up ... I grew up in a forest on an island with few people living within walking distance. But I've been living in a small city for about 14 years, and more and more I long to go back to living somewhere were there aren't all these people around. Or more importantly, to somewhere so much more _quiet_.
- supriyo-biswas 3y ago
  Disagree, I enjoy hanging out in nature, and when it’s not possible I usually look at images on nature subreddits like r/earthporn. Always manages to calm me.
  - wenc 3y ago
    Sure. But consider that not everyone is like you. There has been a normalization of nature lovers in our time (mostly correlated with upbringing and environment, but in some cases possibly partly correlated with affluence ironically — most of my nature loving friends like spending money at REI and posting nature photos — if that was my hobby I would too — yet I notice that there’s a kind of mimesis going on where it’s now cool to love nature) and it’s an interesting reversal because in my day the opposite was true in my milieu (in a big city, so self selected population). I come from survivalist stock where my parents escaped smaller more rural places to make it in the city hence the opposite orientation. When my family moved from the downtown core to a more sparsely populated new development closer to nature (forest preserve next door) for my dad’s job, my grandmother and rest of the family felt it was “too quiet”. They missed the connections they had with the fishmongers and shopkeepers and the thriving commercial activity and convenience of being able to buy stuff. I suspect there is a bias that we see online because those who comment on sites like this and Reddit tend to be introverts and there’s an intrinsic bias toward solitary activities like being in nature. I find the numbers to be more even in the non tech forum population.
    - moffkalast 3y ago
      These two aren't mutually exclusive tbh, both being in rural areas and cities has its pluses and minuses. Living in some area that's on the edge of a city that lets you have both seems like a good compromise to that. Nature a short walk one way, practicality and connectivity a short walk the other way.
- BizarreByte 3y ago
  I grew up in a small rural area and experience this in the opposite direction. Sometimes I just need to get away from people, there's too many of them and crowds can be nerve wracking, not to mention noisy. There is nowhere on earth I am happier than at a family member's camp, deep in the woods away from everyone all by myself. Ultimately I think your last point is absolutely correct. I doubt I'd feel this way if this wasn't a lived experience while growing up.
  - wenc 3y ago
    Yes. I used to live in a smaller city and my friends were from even smaller places (small towns, farms). They have a relationship with open space and with crowds that I don’t have. This is particularly pronounced here in the US where there’s vast expanses and people love their backyards. I never had backyard growing up and never missed it. When I told them about my dream home being a 500 sq ft apartment in the middle of a bustling metropolis, they said the first thought they had was “claustrophobia”. But for me, small spaces in dense areas give me joy — living in the midst of an exciting morass of people where people collide in Brownian motion and new ideas form feel like happiness. This notion is much more common in denser places like Europe and Asia.
- wffurr 3y ago
  Being alone in the city, "alone in the crowd", feels just as lonely if not more so for me than walking alone in the forest. The latter I expect to be alone, but in the former, I'm surrounded by people but with no connection. It's a strange feeling.
  - wenc 3y ago
    There’s a new lot coined word “sonder” that describes being alone in the city and observing others and wondering about their inner lives. As a writer this fills me with warmth rather than loneliness. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonder#:~:text=(file)-,Verb,waves%20to%20establish%20the%20depth https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonder#:~:text=(file)-,Verb...)
    - wffurr 3y ago
      There's a difference between "being alone" and "loneliness". Being alone in the city or the forest can be great. Being lonely, less so.
Name_Chawps 3y ago
[flagged]
- kiklion 3y ago
  We are a social species, but we also heavily compare ourselves to others. The quickest solution might be to remove yourself from others so that you don’t mentally make the comparison. The best long term solution might be to form the social bonds. And sometimes you need to tackle the short term solution to change your mood in order to enact the long term solution.
- andrew_eit 3y ago
  I think the intuition here is: - Being surrounded by people one cannot connect with, increases the feeling that one is socially isolated and an 'outsider'. They are unable to engage with their organic natural (social) environment - Whilst being in 'a forest alone', offers the person a chance to engage with their natural environment and more easily connect with it, just by being there. You don't have to do anything but just exist in it. In a way you are accepted and do belong to that environment (genetically/instinctively). So it acts to counter feelings of 'not fitting in'.
  - Name_Chawps 3y ago
    What I object to is this: "the disconnect with nature, oneself and to a lesser extend the community". No, loneliness is not a disconnect with nature or yourself. It's a disconnect with the community.
    - throwaway13337 3y ago
      The focus on nature might be a product of the time we live. However, the idea that loneliness is due to feelings of alienation beyond just interpersonal is a powerful one. This is to say that loneliness can be thought of as not just a sense of lack of connection to other people but a connection to the world. This loneliness is evident because of our lack of consistency of our actions with results. People have a 'back to nature' kind of philosophy when they talk about it because that is the most common way to find the consistency - farm to table and all that. But I think it's more broad. For example, Minecraft has the kind of consistency that makes a person feel more connected to, at least, that world because it is participatory and makes a kind of intuitive sense that our normal lives lack. I know it seems reaching to correlate the two - in some way, it is. However, the thing a lonely person lacks is more than just an empty person to talk to. It's a deeper purpose which can be often found in activity with other people but isn't limited to it. Some of the least lonely people are those with projects they are passionate about. They have a connection to the world that feels consistent but it isn't other people.
gabereiser 3y ago
Forest, ocean, desert wandering, anything that will take you out of your norm and reconnect with nature (and oneself) will help. I went through loss and found myself pretty lonely and disconnected. I went sailing, against the better judgement of my wallet, to reconnect and prove (again) to myself that I’m amazing. I have strong will though so YMMV. Tell me I can’t do something and I will make it my mission to do it. If you are struggling with connection, stop thinking. Really. Stop thinking about whatever is going on with you and start listening. Talk with people and get to know them. Use that to determine if you would like to keep that person in your life or not. Connections are easy to make when you aren’t trying to force it. Just let that guard down, realize we all have a story, and ask folks who they are and they will gladly tell you. If you struggle with making conversation then I suggest you start there. Say Hi to anyone within 20 feet of you today. If they are there longer than 5 minutes, strike up a conversation. Make a joke. Commend them on their clothes or shoes or something visible. Show some empathy for what they are going through at the moment and you’ll be making friends in no time.
- etothepii 3y ago
  I think this is good advice, but I'm often surprised that the advice isn't more formulaic. Like, "5 questions to ask someone you've just met." It might not be the best approach but I'm sure it's better than standing around. Some examples that spring to mind. "What brought your here to day?", "what's the best way to remember your name?", "where was the last place you went on holiday?". Etc. I suspect that for people who are "bad" at connection any practice is good. I like to keep a pack of cards in my pocket for a couple magic tricks, as I can always then ask "would you like to see a trick?" Very rarely is the answer no. But then could I honestly say any of this moves the dial drastically? Probably not, but I do meet more interesting people than I think I would otherwise.
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    I think if I were to make a blog post or something I would come up with a list like that. I was just shooting some advice off the cuff. What tricks do you do? Sleight of hand stuff?
kodah 3y ago
I spent a year in more isolated parts of a war zone. I almost never felt "alone" because of the bonds I had with people while living life out there and daily tasks I needed to accomplish. I filled a lot of my time fixing stuff that had been ignored due to a lack of expertise and bureaucracy, which gave me a sense of purpose. I'd done harsh activities like burn duty, long watches, long patrols/convoys/missions and never felt they were a burden. Just before I left I returned to a larger base with many more people and I felt the loneliness wash over me like an ocean current. The day I was assigned to burn duty, which I'd done before as a community responsibility, because I was late to something put me in tears, mainly because I realized the people I worked with at a larger base were not actually my friends and we did not share a bond. I had left those people behind. My theory is that the forest requires you to do certain things every day so that you survive, which was one component of my avoided loneliness. If you do just this for a long time I'd suspect loneliness will still set in. You need people and, probably, a variety of them.
closeparen 3y ago
I used to go hiking alone often, but after some wildlife encounters and near-misses with injury I decided I’d rather be with a group. At campsites I tend to be too alert to fall asleep, but the sounds of other campers nearby give me enough comfort to relax. Natural environments reinforce, not lessen, how we need each other.
vishkk 3y ago
Another distinction that will be helpful is between loneliness and solitude. Spending time with yourself in the forest, reflecting or enjoying your company would be the latter for me.
afterburner 3y ago
> they usually drag everybody down This is weirdly concerned with other people in the context of mental health advice for someone. "You're a bummer, go hide in a forest so we don't have to see you."
soultrees 3y ago
I have to laugh, because I literally just got back from a week in the forest. I have a spot I escape to that I charge my laptop every night and then in the mornings I can drive up and work from my laptop overlooking an old growth forest in bc. And I get more work done, feel the best about myself, and just overall feel the modern society stress way less. It’s funny because I found myself feeling very isolated and lonely the last few few weeks and without even thinking my body just packed a bag and drove out to this spot. And I have to say, I feel a million times better if anyone out there is craving the same thing.

wenc 3y ago

Would be interesting to see this study. I personally feel more lonely in nature, especially in forests. I need the energy of big cities to feel a warm glow. I suspect I’m not the only one and there’s a large percentage of the population who are similar to me. When I used to live in small towns, I would have a strong need to periodically visit a big city to restore my emotions. I love the feeling of being in a crowd even if I never talk to anyone. I love the bustle and noise and potential for new encounters. Nature feels isolating to me. I wonder if I’m wired this way because I grew up in a big city. We’re wired to look for places where we can feel we’re “at home”, and that’s usually a function of childhood experiences.

kentiko 3y ago
I think I am same as you. I recently noticed that listening to birds singing make me feel incredibly melancholic. I was very lonely for a few years. I was listening to the singing a lot when I was at my place, and now I have associated birds singing and loneliness. It is unfortunate that something so calming and beautiful now makes me feel sad. It has become the sound of loneliness to me.
dotxlem 3y ago
I agree that it might be due to where we grow up ... I grew up in a forest on an island with few people living within walking distance. But I've been living in a small city for about 14 years, and more and more I long to go back to living somewhere were there aren't all these people around. Or more importantly, to somewhere so much more _quiet_.
supriyo-biswas 3y ago
Disagree, I enjoy hanging out in nature, and when it’s not possible I usually look at images on nature subreddits like r/earthporn. Always manages to calm me.
- wenc 3y ago
  Sure. But consider that not everyone is like you. There has been a normalization of nature lovers in our time (mostly correlated with upbringing and environment, but in some cases possibly partly correlated with affluence ironically — most of my nature loving friends like spending money at REI and posting nature photos — if that was my hobby I would too — yet I notice that there’s a kind of mimesis going on where it’s now cool to love nature) and it’s an interesting reversal because in my day the opposite was true in my milieu (in a big city, so self selected population). I come from survivalist stock where my parents escaped smaller more rural places to make it in the city hence the opposite orientation. When my family moved from the downtown core to a more sparsely populated new development closer to nature (forest preserve next door) for my dad’s job, my grandmother and rest of the family felt it was “too quiet”. They missed the connections they had with the fishmongers and shopkeepers and the thriving commercial activity and convenience of being able to buy stuff. I suspect there is a bias that we see online because those who comment on sites like this and Reddit tend to be introverts and there’s an intrinsic bias toward solitary activities like being in nature. I find the numbers to be more even in the non tech forum population.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    These two aren't mutually exclusive tbh, both being in rural areas and cities has its pluses and minuses. Living in some area that's on the edge of a city that lets you have both seems like a good compromise to that. Nature a short walk one way, practicality and connectivity a short walk the other way.
BizarreByte 3y ago
I grew up in a small rural area and experience this in the opposite direction. Sometimes I just need to get away from people, there's too many of them and crowds can be nerve wracking, not to mention noisy. There is nowhere on earth I am happier than at a family member's camp, deep in the woods away from everyone all by myself. Ultimately I think your last point is absolutely correct. I doubt I'd feel this way if this wasn't a lived experience while growing up.
- wenc 3y ago
  Yes. I used to live in a smaller city and my friends were from even smaller places (small towns, farms). They have a relationship with open space and with crowds that I don’t have. This is particularly pronounced here in the US where there’s vast expanses and people love their backyards. I never had backyard growing up and never missed it. When I told them about my dream home being a 500 sq ft apartment in the middle of a bustling metropolis, they said the first thought they had was “claustrophobia”. But for me, small spaces in dense areas give me joy — living in the midst of an exciting morass of people where people collide in Brownian motion and new ideas form feel like happiness. This notion is much more common in denser places like Europe and Asia.
wffurr 3y ago
Being alone in the city, "alone in the crowd", feels just as lonely if not more so for me than walking alone in the forest. The latter I expect to be alone, but in the former, I'm surrounded by people but with no connection. It's a strange feeling.
- wenc 3y ago
  There’s a new lot coined word “sonder” that describes being alone in the city and observing others and wondering about their inner lives. As a writer this fills me with warmth rather than loneliness. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonder#:~:text=(file)-,Verb,waves%20to%20establish%20the%20depth https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonder#:~:text=(file)-,Verb...)
  - wffurr 3y ago
    There's a difference between "being alone" and "loneliness". Being alone in the city or the forest can be great. Being lonely, less so.

Name_Chawps 3y ago

[flagged]

kiklion 3y ago
We are a social species, but we also heavily compare ourselves to others. The quickest solution might be to remove yourself from others so that you don’t mentally make the comparison. The best long term solution might be to form the social bonds. And sometimes you need to tackle the short term solution to change your mood in order to enact the long term solution.
andrew_eit 3y ago
I think the intuition here is: - Being surrounded by people one cannot connect with, increases the feeling that one is socially isolated and an 'outsider'. They are unable to engage with their organic natural (social) environment - Whilst being in 'a forest alone', offers the person a chance to engage with their natural environment and more easily connect with it, just by being there. You don't have to do anything but just exist in it. In a way you are accepted and do belong to that environment (genetically/instinctively). So it acts to counter feelings of 'not fitting in'.
- Name_Chawps 3y ago
  What I object to is this: "the disconnect with nature, oneself and to a lesser extend the community". No, loneliness is not a disconnect with nature or yourself. It's a disconnect with the community.
  - throwaway13337 3y ago
    The focus on nature might be a product of the time we live. However, the idea that loneliness is due to feelings of alienation beyond just interpersonal is a powerful one. This is to say that loneliness can be thought of as not just a sense of lack of connection to other people but a connection to the world. This loneliness is evident because of our lack of consistency of our actions with results. People have a 'back to nature' kind of philosophy when they talk about it because that is the most common way to find the consistency - farm to table and all that. But I think it's more broad. For example, Minecraft has the kind of consistency that makes a person feel more connected to, at least, that world because it is participatory and makes a kind of intuitive sense that our normal lives lack. I know it seems reaching to correlate the two - in some way, it is. However, the thing a lonely person lacks is more than just an empty person to talk to. It's a deeper purpose which can be often found in activity with other people but isn't limited to it. Some of the least lonely people are those with projects they are passionate about. They have a connection to the world that feels consistent but it isn't other people.

gabereiser 3y ago

Forest, ocean, desert wandering, anything that will take you out of your norm and reconnect with nature (and oneself) will help. I went through loss and found myself pretty lonely and disconnected. I went sailing, against the better judgement of my wallet, to reconnect and prove (again) to myself that I’m amazing. I have strong will though so YMMV. Tell me I can’t do something and I will make it my mission to do it. If you are struggling with connection, stop thinking. Really. Stop thinking about whatever is going on with you and start listening. Talk with people and get to know them. Use that to determine if you would like to keep that person in your life or not. Connections are easy to make when you aren’t trying to force it. Just let that guard down, realize we all have a story, and ask folks who they are and they will gladly tell you. If you struggle with making conversation then I suggest you start there. Say Hi to anyone within 20 feet of you today. If they are there longer than 5 minutes, strike up a conversation. Make a joke. Commend them on their clothes or shoes or something visible. Show some empathy for what they are going through at the moment and you’ll be making friends in no time.

etothepii 3y ago
I think this is good advice, but I'm often surprised that the advice isn't more formulaic. Like, "5 questions to ask someone you've just met." It might not be the best approach but I'm sure it's better than standing around. Some examples that spring to mind. "What brought your here to day?", "what's the best way to remember your name?", "where was the last place you went on holiday?". Etc. I suspect that for people who are "bad" at connection any practice is good. I like to keep a pack of cards in my pocket for a couple magic tricks, as I can always then ask "would you like to see a trick?" Very rarely is the answer no. But then could I honestly say any of this moves the dial drastically? Probably not, but I do meet more interesting people than I think I would otherwise.
- gabereiser 3y ago
  I think if I were to make a blog post or something I would come up with a list like that. I was just shooting some advice off the cuff. What tricks do you do? Sleight of hand stuff?

kodah 3y ago

I spent a year in more isolated parts of a war zone. I almost never felt "alone" because of the bonds I had with people while living life out there and daily tasks I needed to accomplish. I filled a lot of my time fixing stuff that had been ignored due to a lack of expertise and bureaucracy, which gave me a sense of purpose. I'd done harsh activities like burn duty, long watches, long patrols/convoys/missions and never felt they were a burden. Just before I left I returned to a larger base with many more people and I felt the loneliness wash over me like an ocean current. The day I was assigned to burn duty, which I'd done before as a community responsibility, because I was late to something put me in tears, mainly because I realized the people I worked with at a larger base were not actually my friends and we did not share a bond. I had left those people behind. My theory is that the forest requires you to do certain things every day so that you survive, which was one component of my avoided loneliness. If you do just this for a long time I'd suspect loneliness will still set in. You need people and, probably, a variety of them.

closeparen 3y ago

I used to go hiking alone often, but after some wildlife encounters and near-misses with injury I decided I’d rather be with a group. At campsites I tend to be too alert to fall asleep, but the sounds of other campers nearby give me enough comfort to relax. Natural environments reinforce, not lessen, how we need each other.

vishkk 3y ago

Another distinction that will be helpful is between loneliness and solitude. Spending time with yourself in the forest, reflecting or enjoying your company would be the latter for me.

afterburner 3y ago

> they usually drag everybody down This is weirdly concerned with other people in the context of mental health advice for someone. "You're a bummer, go hide in a forest so we don't have to see you."

soultrees 3y ago

I have to laugh, because I literally just got back from a week in the forest. I have a spot I escape to that I charge my laptop every night and then in the mornings I can drive up and work from my laptop overlooking an old growth forest in bc. And I get more work done, feel the best about myself, and just overall feel the modern society stress way less. It’s funny because I found myself feeling very isolated and lonely the last few few weeks and without even thinking my body just packed a bag and drove out to this spot. And I have to say, I feel a million times better if anyone out there is craving the same thing.