An Ode to Solitude

I used to associate being alone with loneliness. But over the past few years, I’ve started to grow alongside my solitude. My time spent alone allows me to reflect on my thoughts and emotions so deeply that I’d begun to view being alone as a quite pleasant experience.

My mind, left to roam freely, absent from distractions of others and social media, has become more comfortable with itself. The thoughts that pop up are honest and unfiltered. I don’t need to wear a mask as I’m experiencing my own mind. I let the thoughts come and go as I patiently observe them.

Traveling alone for the past few months has forced me to undergo long periods of time with my own mind as my sole companion. Of course, I’ve met friends along the way and let new people enter my life, but the majority of the time, I enjoy spending by myself.

I struggle occasionally with self doubt coming to the surface. I question myself and my own mind. I wonder if there is “more to life” and what a question even means. Sometimes I get myself sucked so deeply into such questions that I crave the presence of another person to lift me out – or maybe to bring me back down to earth when my head is in the clouds.

I’ve grown closer to myself through each solitary experience. As much as I attempt to connect my internal world with the external, there will always be a disconnect. Only I can fully and completely understand myself.

And as I explore my own mind, I become curious about the minds of others. How deep do they go? Is the depth infinite among all of us? How well do others understand themselves and how much do they avoid such questions entirely?

When I spend time with others, I want to know how their minds work just as much as I know my own. What are their hopes and dreams? Where do their minds wander when no one else is around? Do we all go to the same places? Is there some sort of “root consciousness” that connects us all?

At this point, scientists know very little about consciousness and why subjective experiences happen in the first place. Is there a difference between our minds and the chemicals firing in our brains? Or is consciousness simply a chemical phenomenon outside of our control? Nobody knows for sure.

I wonder, though, if attaining these answers would provide anything of value to humanity. If we understand our minds fully and completely, will we be able to manipulate them for our own pleasure more effectively? Could we design an AI that mimics human beings and contains all the same elements as us? Is this the next step in our evolution as a species?

And if we manage to spark the next major human revolution ~ the cognitive revolution (?) ~ will we make ourselves obsolete or become gods in a sense?

Maybe spending time alone and investing our own energy into pondering such questions will bring us closer to the answers.

If philosophy is the root of knowledge and knowledge makes action possible, then these types of questions should be on our minds every single day. Maybe spending enough time alone is the key to evolving both individually as well as collectively.