The Romance of Solitude

I remember the thrilling sense of relief I felt when I first learned the difference between "lonely" and "alone." While growing up, I enjoyed spending much of my time on my own and I was beginning to wonder if there wasn't something wrong with me. I loved to read, think, and retreat into my imagination to make up stories. The world seemed to me a complex and confusing place, with so much to think over and try to understand. Being around other people could sometimes be a welcome respite from my own thoughts, but they also brought up new problems to consider.

Somehow I thought I'd lose my taste for being alone when I got older, but now as an adult, I find that I continue to gravitate toward doing things on my own. I eat out, shop, go to the movies, the theater, even go on trips by myself. Many people I know would never dream of doing these things without a partner or five, maybe because they're afraid other people will see them by themselves and think they're lonely, as if there's no difference between not being in the mood to see other people and not having other people to see.

Solitude is becoming increasingly freakish in a culture where singers appear onstage backed by a line of dancers in cute outfits, politicians front a backdrop of carefully-picked everyday people, live audiences clamber up to talk show stages to throw chairs at each other, win cars, or (if they're on Ellen Degeneres's show) dance, and news anchors come in pairs, triples, and quartets. The concept of the entourage has become so de rigeur that there's even a TV show by that title. When was the last time you saw anyone alone on TV or in a movie? (Answer: Tom Hanks in Cast Away, in which his alone-ness was considered something of a special effect in itself.)

What I love about being alone is that things get very still, even if I'm in a crowded restaurant, or walking down the street. I'm lifted out of the place where I happen to be physically into my mind's remove, where I can be in several different places at once. There's no one to negotiate with, to see your dumb mistakes, to hear your passing thoughts. There's nothing you need to buy (which may be why being alone seems so discouraged in America) or do or say or be. Time slows down and often seems to stop.

Is solitude a necessary state for a writer? It can be helpful for a writer to play the observer, to gain some distance from others to understand the world better, to note useful details about people and places to use in a story or essay. And certainly it's crucial for a writer to have space and time alone to produce her work. Sometimes when I answer the phone after I've been writing, people will say to me, "Did I wake you up?" As a matter of fact, they have woken me up from a meditative state, a dream I've willed myself into to access the hidden places in my head where my characters live, breathe, and speak.

However, solitude has its degrees, and each writer confronts solitude in his own way. Some writers are like coal miners who punch the clock, go down the chute, and come back up when they've finished their job. Others, like me, show up early, leave late, and come back to the mines at odd hours, not necessarily to do extra work, but because we like the condition of being underground. We're attracted to writing because it gives form to those odd hours we spend cut off from the world.

When I read certain writers' books (or look at their jacket photos), I sometimes imagine I can tell what kind of relationship to solitude they have. For example, I've often that that Bernard Malamud's work has a much lonelier quality than Philip Roth's (though from what I understand, Roth lives alone in rural Connecticut, spends hours in isolation working on his books, and shuns publicity). When I think of Dickens, Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, as well as the slew of young writers like Dave Eggers, Safran Foer, and Shteyngart, I imagine them in a brightly-lit room filled with people holding drinks. On the other hand, Woolf, Joyce, Hemingway, W. G. Sebald, and frankly most European writers always strike me as detached souls shut up in drafty garrets and thinking deep thoughts. Jane Austen was famous for craving solitude and never getting any, while Proust retreated into it. Janet Frame, who grew up in a raucous rabble of a household, became something of a high priestess of solitude. Jonathan Franzen wrote a book with the title How to Be Alone, (which, embarrassingly, I have yet to read).

I was telling a friend my feelings about this subject, and he said to me, "But, Aaron, you know everyone!" I'm not sure that's true, but there are many times when I've been in group situations and felt like I was standing in the eye of a hurricane. I watched the noise and energy swirl around me, while I remained at the center in the calm and the quiet, where not a breath of wind or drop of rain could reach me. It's a scary, dizzying perch, not without its dangers, though if you can stand them, there are sometimes rewards.