The Death of Solitude

Human solitude is dying.

"Every time I dropped this cell phone I would pick it up, hoping that it was broken, and every time I was disappointed." I said this to the dismay of the person who had insisted I borrow it - with completely good intentions, I might add.

Human solitude is dying. When was the last time that you can remember spending a full 24 hours, or even 12 hours in the absence of anyone else? When was the last time you threw down your Blackberry, your cell phone, your laptop, your pager, your PDA, your carrier pigeon, and every other method of communication, and allowed yourself to be alone?

When was the last time you left the city, left civilization, and went out alone into the woods, the prairie, the desert, the savannah, the tundra and didn't return for hours?

For those of you who are regular hikers, the answer very well might be "yesterday," especially if you live in Canada and you've had good weather recently. I'm not a regular hiker, and neither are most of the people I know. Neither are most of the self-declared environmentalists I know, myself included. We're intent on saving God's green Earth, but not to keen to experience it on our own.

"On your own," is important, not because it represents some kind of rugged individualism, but because it is so rare these days. We are never truly alone these days, as human beings create newer and more intrusive ways of contacting one another. In 1995, how many of your day-to-day acquaintances owned their own cell phone? In 2005, how many of your friends didn't? That's an unprecedented change. As cities expand, other places - places that are not cities - necessarily contract. There is less space to be alone in, and what is left is less accessible to the average person.

As I sit here typing away on my laptop, with its wireless internet connection, some of you might be thinking "now isn't he quite the hypocrite!" The answer is partly "yes," as the last time I recall being so alone and out of contact with humanity, and so in contact with the rest of Life (with a decidedly capital "L") would be at least a year ago. I am, however, not suggesting that we all renounce electronic gizmos and run off to the jungle, to live as hermits in rabbit-skin underwear. The telephone and the computer are useful inventions, and human beings are social animals. They just shouldn't become the focus of our lives; we should be able to live without them. We should be capable of being by ourselves.

Now many of you are probably thinking "Here goes another one, trying to make us feel bad for not spending enough time outdoors."

You'd be right. I am doing that. The important thing, however, is that you do it alone, and for an instant, be alone with your own thoughts, and not only ressucitate, but cherish that solitude.

That is the example of sages and prophets who came centuries before us, and it is one that - I suspect - we are quickly forgetting.