Lonely By Design, Thoughts on Intentional Solitude
Triaging my mind, my feelings. One Substack post at a time.
I don’t really get lonely. I get sad. I miss people. I feel a little empty. Which I guess would fall under the normal umbrella of loneliness, but there’s a vapidness to the kind of loneliness I feel. An obligation to feel as people would expect me to feel in a given scenario as a healthy functioning adult.
Well, here I am, a functioning adult, and I don’t get lonely. I’m trying to triage where this sensation, or this inability to feel a sensation, stems from. If anything I guess I would say my parents?
I grew up in a fairly typical black British Nigerian first-generation household. Not many people will understand that, but some will understand it more than others. To distill this experience, I grew up in chaos. Not necessarily harmful chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Home wasn’t a place to let my guard down and kick my feet up. Home was another playground with its own sharp corners and a carousel of high velocity bobble heads.
All this hustle-bustle activity meant that I essentially grew up with the expectation that other people have other stuff going on, and I internalised that pretty heavily.
People care, of course they care. Though, no one ever cares as much as you care. Not even close. They want good things to happen to you, they care for you, but everyone is so wrapped up in their own existence most of the time that your appearance to them is episodic. I’ve internalised this pretty heavily.
Is this healthy? I’m unsure. Either way, it’s my reality now, and now our episodic tango has come to a close. Carry on with the hustle bustle, adios.
Well said Ibrahim. Your use of literary devices is lovely.
When the Covid restrictions were lifted, I continued to live like a hermit and I sometimes wondered why I wasn't feeling lonely. That quarantine changed many people, myself included. For me it has been a healthy and happy experience;
Hey Ibrahim- I like how you put this: “your appearance to them is episodic.” Very thoughtful.