ESSAY|WRITING|CREATIVE WRITING

Are Loneliness and Solitude the Same Phenomena?

Could we, gregarious human beings, ever manage to break away from it all?

Despair not, you’re not alone Photo by christophe Dutour on Unsplash

Many years ago I read an essay by the novelist and short-story writer Sara Maitland entitled Why do we have such a problem with being alone? In it, Maitland explored the pros and cons of living in isolation. After more than three decades of dwelling on her own by now she is probably a specialist in the subject. Her house is in a remote part of Scotland with distant shops, no mobile phone connection, and very little traffic.

Idyllic, I hear some of you say. Well, it depends on how you see this almost total withdrawal from the world. To Sara, there was a question about identity and belonging that appeared as soon as someone chose to live in these circumstances. However, this question of identity and belonging was being posed to somebody who had used her personal freedom to select her lifestyle. It’s a valid theory and one I had never considered, perhaps because I am still in a Cuban mindset and my upbringing was rather dogmatic. Why do people fear living on their own?

There are myriad inconveniences to cutting oneself from the world and Maitland explained them in detail in her article. I heard some of them in a recent…