What’s the difference between solitude and loneliness? We may confuse the two because we’ve been trained since we were young to think about them as the same state. By sending children to their rooms as punishment, we teach them the idea that aloneness is a privation. “It should be a reward,” says Sara Maitland, author of How To Be Alone. “It should be: ‘You’ve been so good that now you can go to your room to be by yourself and do anything you like!’”
It’s true that social isolation is a risky business. “If you look at it epidemiologically, it’s a surprisingly powerful bad thing,” says Steve Cole, genomics researcher and professor of medicine at UCLA in California. His research found it to be a substantial risk factor influencing whether people get sick and die. “Everything seemed to eat up the body of a lonely person faster.”
But loneliness is simply being alone and not liking it, says Maitland. And while over 9 million adults in Britain say they are often or always lonely, she doesn’t believe we have, as scientists say, a loneliness epidemic. “An epidemic means an infectious disease, which is inaccurate and stigmatising.” Rather, Maitland believes we are “underskilled” when it comes to being by ourselves, and that we were deprived of those skills as children. “Everybody says it is natural for the human species to be social,” she says, “yet we put enormous amounts of effort into training our children to be sociable. We tell them, ‘don’t fight, say thank you, share your toys… ’, we send them to playgroup. We’re depriving them of the skills for being alone.”
There is also, says Maitland, “something weird” about a culture that encourages high self-esteem yet discourages us from spending time with the person we ought to like best. Living in a rural village 70 miles away from the nearest railway station, Maitland says people feel sorry for her because she never goes to any parties. “I don’t feel sorry for me. We should be listening to people who enjoy aloneness more, and not assume they’re mad or somehow selfish.”
For some, solitude is the ultimate prize, the key to happiness. So what’s the art of being alone? I asked five people who love nothing more.
Erica Buist
‘I enjoy having the freedom to dream’: Sarah Drummond, fire tower officer, 48, Western Australia
Every weekday morning I climb Mount Frankland to a tower at the granite peak. There are windows all around and I can see miles and miles of forested hills – on a clear day, I can see the Stirling Range 145km away. I use binoculars, or just my eyes, to spot fires during the bushfire season. When I see smoke, I plot it on the map and radio in the coordinates to the office. They then send out a spotter plane or a truck to check it out. If it’s serious, they’ll call out the water bombers.
Hours can pass without seeing anyone. I live alone and when I’m not on lookout, I spend my time writing or reading. I enjoy having the freedom to dream. I feel as if I can create worlds in my mind and on paper without interruption – although the space between boredom and panic is pretty small. I make sure to mentally check in on my own thought processes so that I don’t drive myself crazy. I love interacting with people and having meaningful conversations, so sometimes I fear my social skills are suffering through lack of practice.
I like to listen to classical music: it’s thinking music. Occasionally, friends or family will visit me, but unfortunately, after that climb, they don’t often come back. It’s only about 700 metres, but up steps and ladders most of the way – people are usually gasping by the time they get to the top. I would like a boyfriend, but this lifestyle doesn’t seem conducive to meeting someone special.
There are tourists, but they don’t stay longer than 20 minutes. Sometimes I’ll have a chat, but if I’m feeling as if I’m a photo opportunity, I’ll hide. There are highs and lows – apparently people getting photographed with their kit off at the top of the mountain is a thing; it’s a moment when I wish I wasn’t holding binoculars.
But nature is my salvation. The mountain and the sea thrum with life. There is a pair of young wedgetail eagles that cruise by the tower every day. Nankeen kestrels slice through clouds of bright orange butterflies. I read the weather constantly, and I’m learning about fire and country. Birds, animals and trees are all around me.
Sarah Drummond is the author of The Sound, and Salt Story: Of Sea-Dogs And Fisherwomen
‘You need to have some creativity to keep your mind going’: Alexander Kumar, expedition doctor, 34, London and all over the world
I work under the umbrella of global health, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. In Ghana, I was assessing telemedicine; before that I was in Vietnam working on hypertension. My next project is in the far north-east of Cambodia, tracking down the contacts of people with leprosy to give them antibiotics as part of an ongoing trial to see if we can eradicate it. It’s very isolating to be an expedition doctor. When I was a student, I lived in the Arctic to do the first piece of HIV research among Inuits. It’s very expensive to live there, so I put an ad in the local paper, and I ended up living in a lady’s cupboard – there was a mattress on the floor that I had to move to open the door. I soon got used to a lifestyle where I travelled alone, running on my own steam.
Later, I spent 11 months in Antarctica for the Concordia mission to Mars. I was working towards understanding the psychology and physiology of sending humans to and from Mars, using the Arctic and Antarctica in winter as a space analogue environment. It was -80F sometimes, and we had three months of darkness. You watch the human mind unzip at the seams. One in 10 people who are in Antarctica over winter have a psychiatric illness.
Keeping busy was really important. You need to have some creativity to keep your mind going. I do a lot of photography; during the Antarctic winter that was the equivalent of art therapy. I used to wander around outside at 1am taking photographs; honestly, I’ve never been more alone. But I enjoy solitude. I think I’m so happy in my own company because I was the youngest sibling by four years and I was often left to my own devices. I inherited my dad’s very social, outgoing nature, but I’ve always found that solitude deprives and stretches you in a way that makes you more creative.
Sometimes you can feel more isolated around others than on your own. One of the most lonely experiences I’ve had in my work was at an Ebola treatment centre. My first day in Sierra Leone, I sat across from a woman about my own age, lying flat on a bed, taking her last breaths. As a doctor, you’re trained to think about the person in front of you more than yourself, but I was overwhelmed with sadness. I couldn’t reach out and touch her, yet she was just 2.5m away. We lost half the ward every night.
The key to being alone is having things to do: a sense of a quest and a purpose. Being alone in your flat with nothing to do is probably more isolating than being in the Antarctic with nobody around for miles.
‘I recharge when I’m alone, and I never get bored’: Rathika Ramasamy, wildlife photographer, 47, Chennai, India
If I’m photographing a tiger, I have to sit on my own, waiting and watching for it to come out of the bush. It could be half an hour, an hour, or several hours. You need a lot of patience. But I love nature, and I also love my own company. I’ve always been like that – perhaps because both my parents worked while I was growing up.
When I am in the field, the day starts at about 4.30am; national parks in India usually open around 6am, and I need to be the first person to enter. In some places, there’s no phone connection, so I’m totally cut off. People always ask me how I cope with spending so much time on my own, but I love it, it relaxes me. I sometimes find being around people exhausting. I recharge when I’m alone, and I feel most alive when I’m with my own thoughts – and nature.
If I have time in the evenings, I read – it gets my mind ready to work again. Thinking of new places I can visit or shoot keeps my brain active. I think it’s important to have time away from people and TV and the internet. I never get bored – there’s always books, or my own photographs to check.
From October to March I have a very tight schedule. I might get one week in town with family – although after just two weeks with them all I start to miss my birds and the forest, become restless and want to go out to shoot.
When I am in town, I have to go through the news to catch up, because when I’m in the field I have no idea what’s going on in the world.
Sometimes it’s been days without talking to anyone at all, though if I have a phone connection I like to call my mother and my husband. If I can hear their voices then I don’t get too homesick. The longest I’ve gone without talking to them is 10 days. That was really hard.
I’ve had so many memorable moments. Once while shooting tigers I came across three cubs. It was the first time I had seen cubs in the same place together without their mother. So I spent half an hour with them and really felt a connection. Once, in Tanzania, in the Serengeti national park, I saw more than 17 lions sleeping like babies in a tree. It was beyond amazing. I say I enjoy solitude, but honestly, I never feel truly alone: I’m with nature.
‘I don’t really feel lonely, except when I miss my kids’: Jordan Farmery, lorry driver, 32, South Ayrshire, Scotland
I spend most of my days driving across Europe by myself in my lorry. I do 11 nights away in a row, and then three nights at home. When I’m driving, I think about family and what I’m planning for my days off, but I mostly think about the job; where I’m going next. Your concentration’s taken up by driving; you can’t let it slip.
I work for P&C Hamilton, a company based in south-west Scotland. We do European and UK temperature-controlled transport. I carry anything from hanging meat to cleaning products, and work all over Scotland, the UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Germany.
I come from a farming background, which is a lonely job as well – you rarely see people. So I’m used to being alone, it’s never bothered me.
In the lorry you can only work for six days, and then you have to have at least 24 hours off. On my breaks I park up at a truck stop or services somewhere, go for a meal at a hotel or a pub and watch the sport, and have my evenings with a tablet I can download TV programmes on to. I try to keep fit by getting a walk in every night, because you don’t get a lot of exercise otherwise, but that’s harder to do in the winter.
I spend my three free days with my kids: three boys who are 10, eight and four. I also do a bit of DIY like everyone does with their days off, and I try to get a few pints in the local pub if I can – but mainly I spend it with my family. My wife doesn’t seem to mind my work, she’s got used to it. I do at least a phone call a day. I miss my children when I’m away, especially after I’ve been home. The first two nights away are particularly hard.
But I do enjoy my work life. I like driving. I’d probably prefer to have a driving job that got me home at night, but then the money isn’t as good. I wouldn’t say I’m an introvert, I’m pretty sociable, but there are maybe two or three days throughout the fortnight when I just don’t speak to anybody. I don’t mind that. If I want a chat, I can speak to other drivers when delivering and dropping off. There aren’t many quiet spells when you get two or three drivers together.
I’ve been doing this job for nine months, and at the minute I’d say I’d like to do this for the rest of my life. I’d like to have my own lorry at some point, if funds allow and I can find the work. I look forward to my phone calls and being home, but I’ve just got totally used to being alone. I don’t really feel lonely, except when I miss my kids – but I know I’ll soon be home, so I just look forward to that.
‘Solitude is a privilege. It’s really hard to experience that in the modern world’: Ian Williams, highland ranger, 57, San Miguel Island, California, US
For 25 years, I was the sole employee on San Miguel Island, the westernmost of the Channel Islands. My position was law enforcement – we get a little trouble with drug smuggling, but mostly people would hunt for relics. There are archaeological sites that are close to 13,000 years old and there’s a lot of exposed prehistoric archaeology. I was there to educate and discourage people from taking things that can’t be replaced. Every day was different, which is probably why I stayed at it for so long.
The National Park Service has mandatory retirement at 57 in law enforcement. My 57th birthday was a few weeks ago, and they were gracious enough to let me stay in another capacity. I’m now a safety specialist. I’ve got an office cubicle and a desk. It’s a very different environment.
San Miguel is about as remote as you can get here; the mainland is about 25 miles away. I’d fly out on a Tuesday, weather permitting, any other staff would fly back on the plane that dropped me off, and I’d work by myself for a week. Some weeks I never saw another human being, or even a boat close to shore. I’m not sure I ever felt I had to “cope” – solitude is just a part of being on an island. You accept it. The farther west you go, the rougher the weather gets, and that contributed to the isolation. There were many days and weeks when the weather was never good enough for any boats or planes to make it out there, so you could be pretty far removed from civilisation a lot of the time. Nature set the terms.
I never felt completely cut off from other people – even though I was physically cut off, we were still working together on projects and logistics, talking via radio. We could call in the morning and they would check up on us later and make sure we were still alive. When my wife and I were first dating we had amateur radio licences and would talk in the evenings – it was a party line so everybody else was in on the conversation, but that was the only way we could keep in touch. Over the years, we got internet connections so we had email, which made it easier. I met my wife when I was already working on the island, so being away for a week at a time is the only life we knew. Coming home after being away made us appreciate being together even more.
If I had spare time it was great for reading, or playing music, or just taking a walk and enjoying the view. I felt the solitude was a real privilege. It’s really hard to truly experience that in the modern world.
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