Humans of Quarantine: Solitude, not Isolation
Aaron Portman is a rabbinical student at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York City. He has spent time doing educational and pastoral work in various settings, including as the head of Camp Stone, as a synagogue youth director in White Plains, and as rabbinic intern at NYU. Last summer, Aaron served as a chaplain at Rikers Island. He is currently quarantining in Pittsburgh, PA, with his partner Dena Edelman.
Self-isolation is the term of the day. Stay away from others! Don’t touch anyone or anything! Six feet of social distancing! In the age of Covid-19, we are encouraged — required, in fact — to keep our distance. We are also learning, quite quickly, that it is very uncomfortable to stay away from others. It is not our first instinct to isolate from people. We are social creatures by nature, we need to interact in order to survive. This basic human need to be close to others is making this time of distancing very difficult, if not painful, for many. How can society function when we are forced to silo in our own, individual spaces?
I’ve been thinking a lot about Henry David Thoreau, the 19th c. American Transcendentalist, naturalist, and philosopher. He spent two years, two months, and two days “self-isolating” in a cabin he built himself on the shores of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts, his hometown. Despite the fact that he received visitors often, traveled into town to sell beans, and ultimately wasn’t that far from society to begin with, Thoreau made an active choice to live alone, in the woods, in order to discover what life had to offer. He wrote about the experience in his book Walden, and describes his reasoning for self-isolating:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
For Thoreau, living alone was not a burden. In fact, it was a privilege to live life so far removed. The woods offered him respite from the superficial ways of society, the materialistic and distracting world of industry, railroads, and mass-production. Thoreau wanted to live “Spartan-like,” focusing inward on what truly mattered. In order to do that, he needed to be away from others, isolated from friends and family, in order to discover what his own conscience might tell him.
The experience of being alone, choosing aloneness, was not an act of isolation for Thoreau. Rather, he describes the experience as one of “solitude,” and dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the practice of being alone. In fact, Thoreau concedes that he was never truly alone. First, he had Nature as a companion. From chipmunks and field mice that crept across his snow-covered doorstep, to water birds and owls that sang to the morning, to the pond itself, a “smooth reflecting surface” that captured the expanse of the sky. Even in solitude, Thoreau found companionship.
However, the true blessing solitude provided was the opportunity for deep introspection. Without the distractions of society, Thoreau was left with himself, his own thoughts and mind to probe. Rather than spend the days hustling to keep up with the expectations of the world, Thoreau had the time for self-observation so many of us severely lack. He was blessed with time away, and he seized the opportunity to dive headfirst into his own, unexplored mind.
In today’s world, the distractions are multiplied exponentially, and we rarely, if ever, find ourselves truly alone. In the face of Covid-19, and the social distancing required, how many of us are either on Zoom or social media or Netflix, looking for some way to fill the empty space created by our isolation? We are, by nature, uncomfortable with solitude. We want to be connected, distracted, or busy; to be alone is considered sad or depressing, a failure on our part. Perhaps it would do us some good to rethink the value of solitude, to explore the potential our new self-isolated realities might offer. Of course, we cannot forget the real and pressing isolation felt by many vulnerable individuals, nor can we ignore the need for connection in this time of separation, but we should also embrace the opportunity for real self-observation and contemplation we have before us. As we shelter-in-place, let’s embrace the freedom we now have to experience constructive solitude. Like Thoreau, let us explore the expanse of our own minds and souls, and use this time of self-isolation to evaluate what matters most. In recognizing the vastness of ourselves, may we come to see the infinite value of those we share this world with.
