Category: solitude

Posted on

“A History of Loneliness”

From historian Fay Bound Alberti’s book A History of Loneliness is an excerpt in the BBC’s HistoryExtra as “The invention of loneliness: why being ‘unhappy alone’ is a surprisingly modern idea.” The author notes that the transition from “oneliness” to loneliness traverses three centuries, eighteenth to twentieth. Mentioned are Thomas Turner’s diaries, Queen Victoria, Carl Jung, Virginia Woolf, May Sarton, and Sylvia Plath.

URL: https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/invention-loneliness-mental-health-lonely-history-modern-unhappy-self-isolation-alone/

Posted on

Loneliness viewed

Here are three items addressing solitude and loneliness. Popular treatments often conflate the two, viewing the phenomenon of loneliness as rooted in culpability and mental conditioning, assuming that society is benign and nourishing,and that regular doses of society are required for balance. Partly true for most, probably overrated for others.

“Social Nourishment + Restorative Solitude = Human Thriving” from Psychology Today blog.
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201912/social-nourishment-restorative-solitude-human-thriving

The Guardian offers “Top 10 Books About Loneliness” mixing literature by women and books on the psychology of loneliness. “A historian of emotion picks the best books about a modern malady.”

  1. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
  2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
  3. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928)
  4. A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf (1953)
  5. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (first published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas)
  6. Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton (1973)
  7. Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John T Cacioppo and William Patrick (2009)
  8. The Lonely City by Olivia Laing (2016)
  9. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)
  10. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari (2018)

URL: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/25/top-10-books-about-loneliness

“How to Avoid the Traps that Produce Loneliness and Isolation” in the Washington Post.
URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/02/how-avoid-traps-that-produce-loneliness-isolation/

Posted on

Millennials as modern hermits?

A clever, informed, and useful piece from Quartzy is titled “Why millennials never want to leave their apartment anymore.” Right up to date as far as the effects of work, technology, money, and post-capitalist society. A related article in the New York Times is titled “Why You Should Find Time to Be Alone With Yourself,” and Japan Today has a similar review of the topic of “living alone.”

URL: https://qz.com/quartzy/1748191/how-millennials-became-a-generation-of-homebodies/; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/smarter-living/the-benefits-of-being-alone.html; https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/living-alone-becoming-a-way-of-life-for-many-but-that%27s-not-necessarily-for-worse