Splendid Isolation

At my twentieth high school reunion (nineteen years ago!) I spoke to an old high school classmate who was amazed at how many people I’d kept in touch with over the years, as she had lost contact with most of her old colleagues. I told her, “I tend to judge my day based on who I’ve talked to. If I don’t talk to anyone, I feel depressed.” This was a foreign concept to her; she was happy just doing her thing – in her case, athletics – and she valued her day by what she’d accomplished rather than her social interactions.

Of course it wasn’t all social interactions for me: I wrote and recorded songs, tackled significant home improvement projects, practiced various instruments, etc., but it’s true that among my circle of friends, I’ve often been known as the guy who reaches out and plans things. This has mellowed over time, but for years I was a big event organizer.

Yesterday, I hung out with an old friend who said it took him a long time to come to peace with the fact that he’s happiest when he’s on his own and able to listen to music or watch a concert DVD or play the piano. For so long he’d judged his preferences, like there was something wrong with him, but over time he’s learned to accept that he enjoys solitude and doesn’t necessarily care to associate with people on a regular basis.

His realization reminded me of a blog I wrote last year called Pursuing Happiness, in which I described how so often we judge ourselves based on what others are telling us we should enjoy.

We’re told we should see the world, but I don’t particularly like traveling overseas. We’re told to go on cruises, but I didn’t really dig my cruise experience. We’re told to see the latest ginormous concert event, but I don’t want to see a concert at a stadium at all, much less pay a small fortune to see it. We’re told to modernize our homes to match the latest trends, but I like the old, cozy feeling of my 1928 bungalow.

It can take a while to accept who we are and what our preferences are. And I’m not suggesting that our lives should be static and that we shouldn’t stretch ourselves and grow and discover, but it doesn’t have to be what society is telling us. And in most definitely can include spending a Saturday watching concert DVDs.

My buddy found a degree of validation in an old Warren Zevon song called “Splendid Isolation,” a track I hadn’t heard before, but it’s a perfect example of what Zevon was capable of: communicating the truth comedically:

I wanna live all alone in the desert
I wanna be like Georgia O'Keefe
I wanna live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street

Splendid isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid isolation

Michael Jackson in Disneyland
Don't have to share it with nobody else
Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand
And lead me through the world of self

Fun stuff. And look, no one is suggesting that we should live a hermit-like existence. My buddy who likes solitude is also a loving husband and father who has a full-time job that requires constant interaction with others. He’s no J.D. Salinger. And maybe these other responsibilities are what makes alone time so precious to him. Perhaps when he retires he’ll be itching for more communal time.

But whatever. He should do him. I should do me. And you should do you. Yes, I think we all have an obligation to help those around us who are in need. But beyond that, put on that Rush DVD and enjoy!

Loneliness, Yoga and Isolation

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”

Kurt Vonnegut said this in 1982, decades before humanity would become steeped in a world of social media, cellphones, pandemics and artificial intelligence. I think he would be horrified at just how un-lonely the world was in the early 80s compared to today. I’ve read more and more headlines about today’s loneliness epidemic, and have observed firsthand the decline of clubs, sports leagues, religion and spontaneous gatherings, along with the rise of privacy fences, ear buds and cellphones, all of which are built to quash potential conversations. My daughter, while attending orientation at the University of Louisville eight years ago, lamented the fact that in an earlier era when students waited for the festivities to begin, they would have struck up conversations rather than leaning on the comfort of scrolling through their phones.

By contrast, I can still remember the first person I spoke to at my graduate school orientation in 1992. Today, that conversation would likely never occur.

But hell, when it comes to disengaging, I’m exhibit A, or at least B or C. After being a late holdout on the purchase of a flip-phone, and eventually a smartphone, I’ve become adept at passing time via a screen versus speaking with a fellow human being, and after years of heavy involvement at my synagogue and other volunteer activities, I’ve pulled away. And, for the moment, this disengagement feels…good. Comfortable. Cocoon-like. But as Roger Waters concluded in Pink Floyd’s magnum opus The Wall, isolation decays the mind. It places us too much inside our own heads and our own echo chambers, and the inevitable result is loneliness and perhaps even a descension into fear and paranoia.

All of this brought to mind something I read in Benjamin Lorr’s book about groceries that I blogged about a few months ago. In it, he references a previous book of investigative journalism that he authored called Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga.

Lorr writes about his immersion into the world of yoga, where people “would enter a studio and bend for eight hours a day, busy doctors, lawyers, bankers who would sneak off to fit in an hour and a half on their lunch break. In yoga it was self-betterment, self-improvement, or becoming a stronger, more radiant version of yourself.  And in it, I found a whole community based on this ethos: people reveling in the very real ways they had transformed from couch potatoes and addicts, remarking after every class about just how much more capable they felt now. But wat was the end? What did you do once you became a better version of yourself? Where did all this self-improvement lead? The answer was always back to more yoga. Never volunteer at a clinic or a food kitchen, never for a studio owner to open more classes to the poor or injured. Never to take our radiant yoga bodies and put them to use in the service for others. And so those lawyers or doctors would go on to use that extra energy to bend for longer house, and when they had a vacation they went off in search of themselves, spiraling deeper and deeper into the practice, becoming ever more capable humans, who could push their bodies into ever more drastic positions.”

It’s similar to the philosopher who devotes a life to the study of ethics while never lifting a finger to help another person, or the theologian who reads the scripture in one hand and turns away the beggar in the other.

And how lovely it is to judge others and think, “Well, that’s not me.” But most of us practice our version of self-immersion, perhaps in worlds other than yoga. For me, it’s writing and composing, record-shopping, listening to music, watching baseball, organizing photos, etc.

And when was the last time I volunteered? It’s been a year, a full five months past the deadline I’d set for myself to get started again.

Time to make a change, I know. Studies show time after time that one of the best ways to cure loneliness is to volunteer to help others, to engage with our fellow human beings. So why are we working so hard as a society to do anything but?

The Lure of Isolation

I recently spoke to a 47 year-old bachelor friend of mine who calculated that he’s lived alone for two straight decades, and as much as he’d one day like to have a lasting relationship, he’s not sure he’d ever be able to adapt to having to live with someone aside from his dog and one-eyed cat. Old habits die hard. Twenty year-old habits die harder. His idiosyncrasies and routines are ingrained.

Or so he thinks. I have another friend who didn’t get married until the ripe age of 60, so my bachelor buddy may be more capable of change than he gives himself credit for.

His calculation of years of solitude caused me to do a quick calculation of my own. Although I’ve spent countless hours alone, I have never actually lived alone. Not from the early years as the last addition to a family of five to the most recent years, when my own family of five shed a few from our humble abode. (The Sesame Street song – so anachronistic today for so many Americans – runs through my head from time to time: “I’ve got five people in my family, and there’s not one of them I’d swap…”) Sure, there were a few months in grad school when my roommate’s fixation on a new girlfriend resulted in a period of my coming home to an empty apartment, but he’d be back for days at a time, his name was still on the lease, and this was grad school, when every day and every evening was brimming with social activity. If anything, I was relieved to have a few moments to myself.

For me, solitude is one of two essential ingredients for creativity (the other is time), and during my formative high school years, I had it in spades as my two siblings ventured to college and my mother worked crazy nursing hours. It fed my creative pursuits and allowed me to understand who I am. It’s something I’ve gotten used to, and I’ve found it to be a blessing. As the Dr. Seuss book says, “Whether you like it or not, alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.” It is, and I’m comfortable with it (I’m alone right now as I write this piece, and I couldn’t be happier). But I also recognized early on as an adult that my need for solitude is offset by my need for human interaction on a daily basis. If I don’t have both, I’m a wreck.  The human contact I experience doesn’t always have to be extensive or particularly meaningful – a nice talk with a dog-walker on the street might be sufficient – but it does have to be there. 

I’m currently reading Bruce Springsteen’s biography, Born to Run (review forthcoming), and he spends quite a few pages exploring his opposing desires for solitude and ample human contact. He writes that early in his role as a father, when one of his children released him from his attention, “I’d often breathe a sigh of relief and run back to my fortress of solitude, where as usual I felt at home, safe, until, like a bear in need of blood and meat, I’d wake from my hibernation and travel through the house for my drink from the cup of human love and companionship.” 

I’m of a similar makeup. Just as my bachelor friend can’t imagine living with someone, I can’t imagine living without someone. If circumstances relegated me to a period of time in an empty house, I believe I’d last about three days before experiencing a mental breakdown. And this leads me to think of my mother, who, when I left for college, lived alone for the first time in her life. She was forty-eight, the same age I am today. And I wonder if she was no more capable of handling that transition than I would be today. 

One of my favorite albums as a teenager, and one that still holds my attention today, is Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I didn’t really understand its themes when I devoured the record during middle school, but today I find it ironic how an album about how isolation results in mental decay was probably enjoyed most often by lonely guys in their bedroom. The lure of isolation, of comfort, control and safety, is ultimately a road to ruin. For a society that’s never been more connected, I believe we are becoming more and more isolated, resulting in the chaos that’s currently ensuing nationwide and globally. Nationalism and hatred breed out of isolation.

We best leave our shells behind, individually and collectively, or we’re all going to be in deep shit.