The Warmest Winter

The last few months haven’t been easy at all, but in the most crucial timing, things have taken a positive turn for myself in a manner that is nothing short of relieving. Before I get into the article, I want to talk for a moment about what it means to me, and the purpose I hope it serves. When I write, I write for two reasons. The first is to make sense of a topic in my own head by bringing a floating thought to life. Think of it as a small thread on a carpet I pull until I’ve peeled away enough of the carpet to see what’s underneath. The second is for you, the reader. Many of these ideas have helped me in some way, and so I hope to share it with you in case it could ever help you too. The power of reading to me is that you can take various perspectives from different authors, and combine them into your own unique mixture of a worldview. It can contain them in whatever ratio you please, and you can spin those ideas in whatever ways you see fit. It is in this way that we can be authentic, despite only hearing what has already been said. The same light that can blind you is what enables you to see. Treat the words of an author like light. This article is about something that saved me in a time I felt that I was lost, and I share this just in case you, or I in the future, ever need it. It’s been a cold winter, I sincerely hope that this can serve as a warm hug in such times. In the words of a Bajan philosopher, you can stand under my umbrella, ella,ella…

I originally started writing this article about a month ago, but I’ve picked it back up now on Feb 14th — Valentine’s Day. Today is the sort of day where it’s easy to feel alone if you’re single, and it feels like you don’t want to go outside anywhere because you don’t want to be that one lonely person everyone pities. Now while your right (or left if you’re a gangsta) hand is great, it seems in times like these that nothing can cure the void we feel inside of us. And this void is not limited to special occasions, either. Loneliness occurs randomly, and is often the sort of thing that sneaks up on you to deliver a harsh blow when you’re down already. Like those days when things haven’t been going your way and you find yourself scrolling through your phone wondering who to talk to, but ultimately putting your phone down because you feel like you can’t talk to anyone. This is the sort of stuff many of us feel, and it’s part of what makes us human. After all, if we never knew loneliness then we would never appreciate the presence of good company. When you’re knee deep in it though, it’s difficult to understand its importance. You just want it to go away.

Our desire to see loneliness out the door will often trigger certain types of responses from us. Most commonly, we’ll reach out to whoever is available, and will pretty much go anywhere so as we’re not alone. Think about how significantly your standards in a mate drop while you’re horny. You would rationalise going on a date with someone you wouldn’t even consider under normal circumstances out of sexual desperation. Now consider the same sort of logic based off of social desperation. You hang out with people you don’t even like that much, you say things that you don’t even want to say just to fit in with them, and you follow the crowd instead of doing what you want. We let the part of us that longs to be loved and accepted take control. Because as long as we’re not alone, we can never be lonely…right?

If you have ever drawn yourself out to chill with people you don’t like instead of being alone, you have likely realised the fact that it leaves you feeling more alone than before. Not only are you feeling distant from the other people in the group, but you also feel distant from yourself. The sober reality sets in that you violated your own boundaries just to not be alone. It is completely okay to want to be loved and accepted, and so we shouldn’t be hard on ourselves for getting into these situations. But we must be careful that we don’t step on ourselves to gain approval from others. You’re not showing yourself any real self-love by doing that. Being alone does not have to be synonymous with being lonely, but so many of us treat it as such. We do this particularly when we are alone not out of choice, but out of lack of people we like to go hang out with. When we feel we are out of control in determining whether or not we can hang out with those we like, loneliness erupts deep within us. But something that was a sort of paradigm shift for me recently was understanding that I can also represent company to myself. When we are young, we learn intuiive metaphysical truths, for example that a person cannot be both in front of you and behind you. One of those truths we also find as we become more self-aware is that we can never see us from an outside perspective, and so remain blind to what we truly look like. But this does not have to be the case. One may opt to flip this truth on its head in the following way:

Original thought: I am myself, and so I can never be separate from myself. I don’t have a choice if I’m with myself or not, so my presence does not count in the same way another person’s does. As such, my company is not as valuable as another’s.

Flipped thought: I am myself, and so I can never not be separate from myself. What this means is that I am always with myself, and I have a constant companion to go through life’s journey’s with.

You see here that the first two sentences are the same in each thought, because they are metaphysical truths — facts, if you will. But what comes after is key, because it’s how you view these truths that determines whether or not being alone is synonymous with loneliness. Just imagine when you’re doing any given activity, such as going to a restaurant or playing minigolf. We think of some of these things as pitiful and sad to do alone, because they are things we usually do in the company of others. However, just because they are nice things to do in the company of others, it does not mean that they are not nice to do when you’re not in the company of others. That would be a black-and-white fallacy (I considered that it may be an association fallacy, do your research and let me know what you think). These activities can be perfectly good in your own company. I appreciate there’s things you can only do in the presence of others. You can talk to them out loud (I would not advise this one alone). Building on that, you can talk to them out loud meaningfully. Other people have had experiences which you haven’t and vice versa, so they can form opinions from different perspectives based on their unique lens. Talking to yourself in such a way could only get you so far. None of this is contrary to my point, though. These are all reasons why talking to others is good, which I reiterate are not reasons why being alone is bad.

The occasional solo dinner, or activity may be good, because you can give yourself all of the attention and keep all of the fun to yourself. If you can resist the urge to numb the anxiety by going on your phone, you will find that you can also withdraw into your mind and have some real internal dialogue in a manner which you can find to be meditative. You could also listen to podcasts, music, read a book, journal, write etc. When you don’t hinge your ability to do certain things on the presence of others, you realise the sea of things which you can do by yourself, that you couldn’t do if other people are there (or at least not as well). You see, that is a good reason to do things by yourself. It was understanding this that helped me cope with feelings of loneliness and alienation at university. It helped me to face the period of uncertainty at a time where I felt like I didn’t have enough good company, at a time where I would loathe myself for needing other people to do things. Once I faced up to it alone, I learnt how much I can really accomplish on my own. And P.S. it was the little things that meant the most to me, like being able to go to dinner or to the shops alone. Don’t get caught up too much in trying to tackle goliaths and waffling to yourself about courage and shit. Start simple.

My bottom line is that once you realise you can be legitimate company to yourself, you unlock a plethora of options of things you can do without the company of others, simultaneously growing your love for yourself and reducing your reliance on others to do things you want to do. Travel alone. Eat alone. Turn up to events alone. You will be with yourself 100% of the way, because you are 100% yourself. And let me reiterate for the third time. It is perfectly fine if you want to travel with others, eat with others and do things with others. The right company can remove the anxiety from many situations by providing familiarity, or make things more meaningful by having someone you care about to share memories with. But the occasional meal alone is cool too. Dave once said “Being by yourself can make the best of things redundant” and I agree. It can. But it doesn’t always have to. So try it out. Face that uncertainty. If you find yourself wanting to, do some travelling on your ones. Take that solo trip to Nando’s. Forget what other people will say and what they think. They are pushing the same flawed logic onto you which you are trying to escape. But for those people, I’ll just leave this here.

So go be insane then. If that’s what it means to be free.