On: How to be alone: the difference between loneliness...

[tokai]

I see some of you commenting about being introvert and liking to be alone, but still feeling the sting of loneliness. I just wanted to share an excerpt from the abstract of Robert Burton's wonderful Anatomy of Melancholy published in 1621. I think the alternating allure of solitude is at the base of being human.

  Friends and companions get you gone,
  'Tis my desire to be alone;
  Ne'er well but when my thoughts and I
  Do domineer in privacy.
  No Gem, no treasure like to this,
  'Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss.
  All my joys to this are folly,
  Naught so sweet as melancholy.
  
  'Tis my sole plague to be alone,
  I am a beast, a monster grown,
  I will no light nor company,
  I find it now my misery.
  The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone,
  Fear, discontent, and sorrows come.
  All my griefs to this are jolly,
  Naught so fierce as melancholy.

[amsilprotag → tokai]

I remember reading earlier this year a commencement speech at West Point in 2010 by William Deresiewicz. [0]

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/