Home alone

"Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known... then went crazy as a loon."

                                                                                                               -Lisa Simpson,The Simpsons

Yesterday when I returned home after yet another day at work, I stumbled upon something which made me feel like butterflies in my stomach. It may be nothing but seemed like something very important to me at that time. I promised to myself that I will take some time off and think about it. So here’s the thing. For most of the days in last few years, I always come back to an empty house and I hate it every time. I am living much on my own for the last 7 years or so, studying and working. Inevitably it involves sharing the room with roommates (sometime friends, sometime strangers) with which I am totally comfortable. But it’s the empty room I can’t stand.

According to philosopher Paul Tillich “Language... has created the word ‘Loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.” Quite right as it sounds, there are two faces of the coin. One side says that we’re born alone, we live alone and we die alone. And that through our temporary love and friendship, we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone. The other side says that only when a man is alone can he really discover himself, like writing a book. Totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your own thoughts. While both the sides seem equally convincing, which one should I choose as a respite?

Let’s see who I owe my solitude to. Actually, who can anybody owe it to but other people? I owe my loneliness to other people. Or was I building walls when I had to build bridges? How will I know? We all live in a strenuous environment that pulls us apart and we need to learn how to pull ourselves together. Isn’t solitude a solution for this? Are all of us lonely?

Voltaire once said the happiest of all lives is a busy solitude. That means making the most of your loneliness. That means next time you are alone, try to introspect rather than whining that you are bored.

Introspect? Why? Why to have a burning fireside, when no one ever comes to sit by it. I think I will leave the questions unanswered.

"Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."  -Francis Bacon