How to be alone: the difference between loneliness and solitude

I think the skill of being alone with one's thoughts has become rarer and more valuable with each passing year.

[0] https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/

Though more recently I've started to see this behavior as a defense mechanism against predatory people. I've been an observer of many dinner table conversations among rent-seeking types, which slowly erodes away my faith in people (the current commander-in-chief of the US is the perfect physical manifestation of this type of thinking - the "I was here first so now I can extract wealth from society" mentality. And it works, because people are eager to pay for luxury real estate)

But I digress. And digression is a consequence of solitude since you are not frequently bouncing ideas between other people. It can become a self imposed echo chamber, rationalizing things the way you want without a reality check.

As pessimistic as I sound, I know that there are many pure, selfless people in the world. Lots of them have YouTube channels that I'll check up on every few weeks. I want to find more of them and shower them with resources.

Apologies for the stream of consciousness format. Apparently I'm leaning more towards loneliness than solitude at the moment, and this article is a prompt to share something outside of my own head.

Wow, that actually resonates with my own actions. I like people, but I'm always wary of the costs of interacting with them.

On the contrary, any social animal can get lonely. There's a wide range of behavior in the socialization of animal species. Even slime moulds are highly social. What is considered healthy or helpful social behavior varies, both by species and by groups. Therefore, trying to extrapolate lessons about human social behavior from the frequency of whale calls may not be very useful.

Loneliness is an unpleasant experience caused by a biological motivator to seek out social contact. If you're a social animal and you don't have contact with social animals when you would normally want it, you will feel some form of loneliness. Loneliness is subjective because it is a symptom of a subject's need not being fulfilled, and those needs can vary.

Solitude is more complex than loneliness. Solitude is the state of being secluded or isolated, and may or may not be chosen. When compared to loneliness, it can be considered a positive, whereas loneliness is a negative.

While loneliness is a symptom of a lack of social connection, solitude has a vast array of features. Prolonged solitude can cause mental instability such as hallucination, time distortion, psychosis, and other negative physiological reactions. But solitude can also enhance self-esteem and creativity and be personally gratifying.

"How to be satisfied with being alone" could be more simply described as the ability to understand a particular need and how to deal with it. You may not be able to eliminate the need, because you don't necessarily have full control over the thoughts in your head, nor your situation. Mental illness and physical isolation, for example, can prevent you from eliminating the need for social connection. A child, adolescent, or teen also doesn't have much agency, and can have difficulty managing their thought processes. But an adult with full agency and who is mentally healthy can probably address their symptoms of loneliness.

So, how to be alone? I would say, first learn to understand why you are lonely, and whether this need serves a useful purpose. Then, find healthy ways to choose to experience solitude, and make it personally fulfilling. That's my take on it, anyway.