Monthly Mailbag!
The Case for Solitude vs Isolation
This is the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series of posts inspired by my readers. If you have a question or an issue that has been on your mind that you would like a deeper dive on, send it me via email or message and I may choose to feature it in my monthly mailbag.
One of our readers wrote in to push back — gently but clearly — on the relentless cultural messaging around community and connection. They’re not dismissing the value of relationships, they said, but they’ve come to recognize in themselves a temperament that’s more naturally suited to a quieter, more solitary life. They noted that spiritual traditions have long understood what our noise-saturated culture seems to forget: genuine contemplation requires silence, not just a brief escape from distraction. “Some think they can escape noise,” they observed, “and that is enough.” They don’t.
Many of us have noticed this curious trend in the mental-health conversation: the almost universal claim that more community is always better. Articles warn of an “epidemic of loneliness,” and the solution offered is nearly always the same — join something, connect more, expand your social circle. It can be helpful advice.
But human psychology is more complicated than that.
For some people, especially those with contemplative temperaments, solitude is not deprivation. It’s psychological oxygen. Today’s mailbag explores this issue a little more deeply.
