Loneliness and solitude appear on the surface to be similar, even the same. If I were to see a picture of a man sitting in a room with nobody else present, I might use either word to describe which of the two states he is in. This would be especially true if I first noticed he appeared to have a blank expression that gave no clue as to his psychological or emotional state. In both cases I would initially observe he is by himself, separate.
But if I focused more closely on his face, I might be able to ascertain if the picture was showing me a man in a state of aloneness or solitude. If he looked sad, I might be inclined to say he was lonely. If he appeared to be content, then I might be led to say he was experiencing solitude. What causes the difference between these two states of being that look the same but that are quite different?
I believe one reason for this distinction has to do with choice. If I am separate from others because of circumstances largely out of my control, I will most likely feel lonely. If I am separate from others because that is my preference for a certain amount of time I set for myself, then I am probably choosing to spend some time in solitude.
When I was between marriages from 1990 to 1993, there were times when I was by myself for parts of the weekends. Those were hard times for me. It hadn’t been my choice to end my first marriage and so it was difficult for me to be in the now empty house by myself. I lived through times of loneliness when I was in high school and felt like I didn’t fit in with my peers. I sometimes perceived teaching as a lonely profession even though I was in a classroom filled with students. Despite being around other people all day, I would occasionally feel isolated because, being in a self-contained classroom, I usually didn’t have other teachers to share with during the course of the day. There have never been prolonged periods of time when loneliness has been a constant in my life but, in the words of Robert Frost, there have been moments in my life when “I have been one acquainted with the night.”
On the other hand, I have also known what it is to be in a state of solitude and have found such times to be energizing, inspiring, uplifting. Listening to Dvorak’s 9th Symphony or Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, reading poetry by Robert Frost or a short story by Ernest Hemingway, watching snow fall or listening to waves crashing on a Rhode Island beach are all solitary experiences that I enjoy by myself from time to time.
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau had this to say about being apart from others by choice: “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone.” It would be far too much aloneness for me to live in the woods by myself for two years as Thoreau did. At most, all I need are a few hours apart from the physical presence of other people in order to reflect and renew myself. There’s no right or wrong length of time needed to restore ourselves by being in the company of the one person in the world who knows us better than anyone else.
David James Madden