For the first time in many years I found myself in a big group of friends in a new city. Good social life is something I always thought I was missing and now I have it. I realized, though, that my problems are still there. Maybe I had put too many hopes into this, but I am rather disappointed. In fact, lately I came to appreciate again solitude and my alone times. I still think friends should be a top priority in life, but now I also think you need to reserve time to do stuff on your own, it gives you the chance to always try out new things.
Sure, it's always a question of balance - I enjoy spending time with my friends, but I need frequent and long breaks, which sometimes leads to confusion and misunderstandings ("Why would stay in alone tonight?"). Maybe it's an introvert thing but I'm often surprised when I see people that need other people around them constantly and rate time spent alone as wasted.
I couldn't put my finger on the phenomena until I read that comic one day: [0]. It's about energy generation and expenditure - extroverts gather their energy from human interaction, introverts have to expend it on those social moments.
I keep sending this picture to people who know me personally and are surprised I consider myself introverted - after all, how someone who is seen publicly speaking so often and finds it easy to make friends can possibly be introverted? The answer is simple: I like people, but spending too much time with them exhausts me, and I need to "waste time alone" to recharge.
Yeah I can completely relate to this and have attributed it to being introverted as well. I am extremely social when I do attend social events, often being the most talkative if it's a group of 4 or less, but need to recharge alone the day after whereas my friends will continue to want be around each other. They often accuse me of being horrible at communication and making the effort to hang out with them, but to me, it's a simple matter of needing to be alone for a period of time, which I assume they are not familiar with as they all seem on the extrovert side of the spectrum. Sure, it's important for me to override that sense of wanting to be alone to catch up with friends and be a better communicator/friend, but it is in no way natural for me.
I'm the same way, and I've heard that repeated a few times now.
I have to wonder though, does anyone actually "recharge" when they're with a group of people or do they just have a higher tolerance for spending time with others before they need to be alone?
If you can't tell, I don't really buy the introvert/extrovert distinction and I haven't seen any evidence that anyone can spend unlimited amounts of time with others without recharging alone. From my own experience it seems like there's a continuum from "needs lots of alone time" to "doesn't need all that much alone time".
> I have to wonder though, does anyone actually "recharge" when they're with a group of people or do they just have a higher tolerance for spending time with others before they need to be alone?
In American and Australian societies, extraverts outnumber introverts 10 to 1. Growing up a fairly severe introvert as an American had me labeled as that weird loner outcast from a young age. Always spending time with other people is the norm. Spending a lot of time alone is seen as weird and antisocial. I've known kids whose parents have sent them to shrinks and medicated them because of such "antisocial behavior" as sitting in their room for days on end reading books.
In cities, most people literally don't have 10 minutes of alone time. I certainly didn't and it drove me to the brink of insanity after a number of years. Outside of cities, most people have families and also have little time alone.
That said, introvert/extrovert isn't an on/off switch. It's a spectrum. A sliding scale.
If you read through the comments here, there are people that go crazy when alone, and people which go crazy when in groups. It's kinda like saying you don't buy gravity. Sure, we don't fully understand all of the details, but to say the dichotomy doesn't exist isn't logical.
Well sometimes I go crazy when I'm alone, and other times I go crazy when I'm with a group. The reason I don't buy the dichotomy is that if these two things can be true for the same person, is there any value in making the distinction? They seem to describe moods (that some people have more often than others) rather than personalities.
Although preferring solitude, I have found that long periods put me at competitive disadvantage socially. I start forgetting how to make small talk and engage in all the social grease.
I once believed it didn't matter and the time saved could be better spent engaged in productive activity. But as I get older and have carefully observed what works and what doesn't, I have noticed that a good command of the social language is crucial to success. One is extremely unlikely to make much of an impact nor achieve big financial gains without it. That isn't to say one has to be nice to everyone... assholes with a good perception and practice in manipulating social situations often do very well for themselves. But you have to have command of the language. And you don't get this being by yourself all the time. I find this unfortunate because in my experience the vast majority of people aren't that great to spend a lot of time around. Most people aren't curious. Most people have little myopic views of the world that are badly mistaken. Most people are frankly pretty dull and I'd rather visit the dentist than talk w/ them at length. But I've come to realize this is a counterproductive view (even if it's technically true). The world we live in is made of other people and we do well when we learn to navigate the river we find ourselves upon. But truth be told, I'd still rather be locked in the closet reading an interesting article.
I have always seen the ability to endure solitude as one of the primary reasons why some people are successful.
The ability to enjoy your own thoughts, process, reflexions and the self-discipline to stay with them no matter what they are is what build up intuition.
No, because narcissism does not mean: self-reflection, introspection, consideration for one's own thoughts, pondering ideas, inwardness, etc.
Rather, it would be more like this: I think I'm the greatest. I'm so much smarter than everyone else. Whatever I do will be extraordinary.
Narcissism tends to be empty of substance, because by definition it means an exaggeration.
It doesn't take long to realize that's of no benefit to a process of thinking when it comes to problem solving, invention, or innovation. The more time spent on congratulating yourself on artificially inflated views about your own abilities or accomplishments, the less time spent actually doing. Narcissism is a detriment to achieving great output, to the extent of the narcissism, as it's wholly a waste of thought and time.
>go into solitude so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think. After a time it always seems as if they want to banish my self from myself and rob me of my soul.
I always liked this piece, as it fits with me being able to be alone for days on end, without missing anyone's company.
The flip side of this is people tend to get weird and ornery without a proper community enforcing standards of behavior. It's pretty common to not even realize how unacceptably eccentric you're getting. Bear in mind that Nietzsche wound up totally insane.
The traditional christian teaching is that solitude is bad. Man is a social animal and can only properly develop joined to family and community and church, fulfilling duties and obligations to each.
Nietzsche was likely driven insane by CADASIL leading to frontotemporal dementia[1]. CADASIL is a genetic disorder and has nothing to do with being solitary.
> a genetic disorder and has nothing to do with being solitary.
You don't really know that. We know very well that weak social ties aggravate all kinds of health problems. Extensive time alone is probably worse for you than smoking. It's perfectly plausible the Nietzche's habit of spending many weeks alone at a time brought about his early demise.
You are certainly correct that weak social ties can aggravate health problems, but there's no indication that was the case with Nietzsche. The median onset of stroke in people with CADASIL is 50 years[1], but Nietzsche was 53 or 54 when he had his first stroke, so he beat the odds.
Christian teachings that man needs to be joined to a church in order to be whole may have less to do with what a man really needs and more to do with what leaders of churches think they need....
On separate (but related) note: I understand cults generally very strongly discourage solitude and periods of deep introspection. Keep everyone busy so they don't have time to figure out what we are doing with their money and their daughters. Or something like that.
> The traditional christian teaching is that solitude is bad. Man is a social animal and can only properly develop joined to family and community and church, fulfilling duties and obligations to each.
I wouldn't ascribe too much significance or meaning to 'Christian' teaching. It has no basis in science or empiricism.
And actually some quite important founders of Christianity (Jesus, Joseph) spent some time alone, in the desert and I don't think it's pictured as a 'bad' thing in the bible.
Psychology is a science, yes, and it holds that time spent alone is perfectly normal and for a large section of the population absolutely necessary for mental health.
But is it always clear that the community sees as "proper [...] standards of behavior" is actually a proper standard of behaviour, or the sign of a dysfunctional community?
Solitude makes me insane. Yes, I am more productive, but I also become highly unstable. It's a tradeoff. At the end of the day, I value my mental wellbeing more than my productivity. But good friends are hard to find, and I'd rather be alone than put up with the wrong people.
Edit: Now I really feel like reading Nietzsche again.
I relate to this. I like the way you make it clear that given a choice between sanity and productivity, you choose the former. But is this not a false dichotomy, I wonder? I hope!
For me, prolonged absence of close company quickly begins to feel like low-grade depression ... or general melancholy. I used to enjoy solitude, but the years and the birth of my children has shifted most of the time I used to crave for myself. I don't crave solitude as badly anymore. In fact I fear being left alone. Also our recent financial set backs and a few deaths in the family has left me questioning the idea of being productive entirely.
The funny thing is that I'm not entirely honest when I get the company I crave ... I begin to display fickle emotions of wanting solitude immediately because I feel I'm not productive.
I'm really in purgatory right now with exactly that: sanity vs productivity.
Solitude and Silence are foundation for individual growth as per Indian philosophy. In the words of Sri Aurobindo (1), a modern Indian philosopher and mystic,
"The love of solitude is a sign of the disposition towards knowledge; but knowledge itself is only achieved when we have a settled perception of solitude in the crowd, in the battle and in the mart"
No solitude no peace of mind. No peace of mind no innovation. No innovation no future.
I think it was Goethe, another great German thinker and poet, who once said: "In der Einsamkeit geschehen die größten Dinge." - "In Solitude the greatest Things happen."
P.S.
I'm not sure if my 'tanslation' reflects the original meaning of the sentence. Please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Closest that I could find was: "Talent is nurtured in solitude … A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude."
Taking this one step further, I wonder if increasing urbanization leads to more and more groupthink, because of increasing proximity. If solitude is key for forming a unique creative perspective, in effect to make sure you don't 'drink out of everyone's cistern' as Nietzsche says, living in cities would be a bad thing, rather than good.
