the concept of solitude

I have been reading Immortality by Milan Kundera, wherein the beauty, and the scarcity of solitude is mentioned.


Right now, I am writing in solitude, as I always have. Writing, just like art, be it executed alone or with others, is done in solitude, shared or singly. Solitude does not mean being alone, for to me it just means completely being with yourself. With an intimate companion, you can achieve that. In a crowded place, you might - then again, you might get bumped into and have your chain of thought cut short, or bubble-shield penetrated against your will by jabbing strangers who walk too near you.


Solitude is not the furthest from me when I am in a crowd. It is when I feel a broken, or missing synchrony with the people I love, or with the company I am keeping. That, in fact, is loneliness, the lateral inversion of solitude, the furthest extreme, the polar opposite.


Instead of being with yourself and enjoying it, you are alone and prone to doing silly desperate things. You do not love yourself when you feel lonely, and time holds no meaning in itself. In solitude you gain inspiration; in loneliness, you might just get yourself sick.


Imagine a moment transformed: At first, you sit down by yourself to enjoy a meal at the kopitiam, happy because you are hungry and about to enjoy your favourite food of the moment, and perhaps read a good book while at it, or people-watch if you like that kind of thing. Suddenly, your man smses you he is out with someone else, doing an intimate deed like watching a movie, with a girl who is not you, and you know is about to betray you. The soup turns bland, threatened by tears that might fall anytime, even the hotness of the soup, no longer scalds; your tongue feels nothing. Solitude has turned into loneliness.


I remember that moment: I was having fish soup at the Ang Mo Kio S-11, it was in a year I no longer recall.


I have mentioned before that I am claustrophobic. I feel inwardly disgusted when my space is invaded. This can take the form of Orchard Road crowds, or in the form of someone entering my room, or an occasion forcing me to be happy for it. I no longer hate people for being part of any of these instances, but I am enduring them, not enjoying them in the slightest. They threaten my love for intimacy, that is, shared solitudes. I feel like something is being taken away when these instances are in place, and I want it back.


In intimacy, there abides shared solitude. I enjoy the moments when I share the space with someone I love: reading, or having a quiet meal, or having walks, or lain on the bed at night. Shared solitudes are the in-betweens of pure solitude and pure loneliness. Some will say, that they have felt lonely lying next to the person they love - that is possible, and often experienced, shared loneliness. But shared solitudes are not about feeling lonely, if anything, these moments will help you gain more insight into yourself, and your companion into himself.


Loneliness occurs with or without the presence of someone you love. Where there is someone, a loss of synchrony might occur sometime. Loss of synchrony - a broken connection, a dead love never to be resurrected and that be against your will, a loss of love of life because there seems to be no vision nor purpose. When we find that our loved one is far away in his thoughts, or communication breaks down, or that your differences seem irreconciliable; or that he has left you against your will; or when we need direction in life and somehow are still searching - loneliness steps in.


I added the last point because, when we need direction, we feel lost, and apart from the presence of God, we are lonely, because we have to search alone and incommunicado, and because without vision in life, even love with another human can turn to be meaningless and without direction too. Ever been told that she cannot see a future with you? She turned lonely even with you around, because really she needed direction, and probably still does very much, maybe without her realising it. Perhaps, anyway.


In times of loneliness we may do very silly things. It is like a spell of fear, a sickness that incapacitates healthy functions of our own bodies and minds. I once I called someone up, and mistakenly in my sickness mistook him to say, imply, something else - and that practically altered the path of my life forever. I no longer think, 'what if?', but months after that incident, I realised I misintepreted him too soon, and that the clock can never be turned back. It was my turn to kill the same beautiful thing, as we kept doing, to the point we carry sadness with us till it transfers out. In my loneliness thereafter I became a person I call my alter ego, for I am not her, but I sometimes think about her glamourous lifestyle and covet it mistakenly in lust. When I am her, my tents are open, and company comes, even the wrong and taken ones that should never enter. I regret, and move on and away from my alter ego.


Despite my current safe haven of completed husbandry (c.f. chick-lit author Laura Zigman) as some perceive, loneliness still occurs, albeit rarely. But it hits tsunami-style, like a fall from a great height, in sudden occurences. Suddenly you sense a loss of synchrony, because of differences in things that matter to both, or a rare moment of lost control of temperament. It resolves eventually, but at that point, the fall into loss and loneliness, is no regular single-girl fall.


There was once, Cal and I were along Greenleaf Road towards his house, in a car or walking I don't remember. We saw a guy walking by himself towards us, presumably walking out to take a bus along Holland Road. Calvin gestured towards that guy, and gently said, 'If we didn't find each other, that would have been me.' Just like how I told him on another occasion on the PIE towards my house, I would rather be the guy in the dingy car with someone beside him, than be the uber cool yuppie in his beemer, going home alone. These shared intimate moments make loneliness even more feared, and protected against. That is why the fall is greater.


I no longer hunger for solitary cavegirl moments (improvisation mine; it should be caveman, c.f. Men are from Mars) as much as I used to. Because I have someone I can share moments of solitude with, and he likewise, so I reserve the unadulterated moments of solitude for writing, like I am now. When together, we share solitudes through intimacy. When apart, sometimes I do crave for intimacy instead of pure solitude, and that is where I write or if possible, talk to people and spend moments of shared solitude with them as well. Though, it may not always be easy, possible, or guilt-free, for plenty of reasons.


Very soon, I will sleep for a few hours before my work day starts. Sleep, another form, to me, of loneliness. I no longer fear it for I no longer have insomnia. But I still go to sleep in the same way - through fantasising, thus, through dreaming, bridging the gap of awakenness into sleep. And in my fantasies, of course, I am never alone.