Do you hate being alone? Blogger par excellence, Fran pointed me to this piece on the value of alone time and engaging with introversion.
But in today’s world, the solitude required to look inside is less and less valued. So much so it seems many people just can’t “do” solitude. We live in a culture that respects and encourages everything that is not solitude. It promotes constant visibility and getting yourself out there: joining teams and groups, creating bigger and bigger professional and personal networks, attracting hundreds or thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.
Yet, in the ultimate sense, in the terms of “things as they are”, we are alone. We came into this life alone and leave it in the same way. And, in the time in between, we do everything we can to forget our ultimate aloneness—pretending it’s not so.
On ye olde myers briggs indicator, I’m right in the middle between introvert and extrovert (and sensing and intuitive too! I go off the charts on preferring feeling over thinking and perceiving over judging–in short ESFP is my main indicator but I am close to INFP too). I tend to be a “Performative extrovert. Put me in front of people and let me perform and I’m good. Put me in a party and ask me to simply be with people and I’m less comfortable. Put me in a work group with a bunch of people who are aggressive and who only think out loud and I’m done! I lose energy quickly and I crave sitting alone and working out the issues by myself and then coming back and presenting.
After a day of being with students I crave being alone with the dog. The long walk interrupted only by picking up dog poop, even in winter’s blight (maybe even especially in winter’s blight) is one of my favorite times. Even beyond that, meditating in solitude with St Ignatius’ 19th annotation retreat has been powerful for me. Writing this blog is a mix of introversion and extroversion as well.
And yet we all often run from solitude. We even point to scripture, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”. (genesis). That original sin mind you happened because one coerced another and the other did not think about the consequences; they just acted unreflectively.
Perhaps that’s a moment we can all take some time to reflect on? How are we when we’re alone? How do we feel when we are in solitude?
Right now I’m in my friend’s house writing this and there’s noise around us. I like that but also needed some quiet time this morning so I snuck away for a bit. Where do you sneak away to so that you might find a bit of peace? For it is there that you not only find yourself but you also find God.
Our prayer today is in solitude. In the stillness O Lord, my soul awaits. Amen.