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Raw 'n' Uncut: The Joys & Sorrows of Solitude
25 Plays1 month ago
Do you ever just want to be alone?
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Transcript
Welcome to Life's Effin' Nuts
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome, friends, to another episode of Life's Effin' Nuts. I am JR, your friendly host. Life's Effin' Nuts, one man's stories and ruminations on being human in an upside down world.
Episode Format: Raw and Unedited
00:00:19
Speaker
This is the raw and uncut version. No production, no editing. Unfiltered.
00:00:31
Speaker
If you prefer more polished content, I encourage you to check out seasons one and two, specifically, specifically season two. It's the, the, the most polished of my content. So raw and uncuts more of improvised musings. So it was a little bit of a different style, different flavor.
Solitude and Self-Reflection
00:01:00
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And I want to talk about solitude. Solitude. i i'm I'd be curious how many people out there consider themselves, at least in part, solitude-ness.
00:01:24
Speaker
And
00:01:27
Speaker
I'll say for myself that solitude has been a huge part of my life. I think when I was young, I just didn't feel very comfortable in my skin for most of my young life. And and didn't and I didn't know it at the time, but I just didn't feel
00:01:52
Speaker
at ease in groups or when I was part of social systems.
00:01:59
Speaker
It was partially like I didn't, I couldn't quite get my footing within my family system. Just didn't, I just didn't quite, I don't know, I just didn't quite feel like myself, didn't understand myself. I i was, I didn't have good self-awareness, like I didn't understand my emotions or who I really was and things like that. It was just, it was just kind of disorienting the whole thing.
00:02:27
Speaker
And I didn't, like I said, I didn't necessarily know it then, but now I can kind of look back and see that it was probably, there was probably like, probably stressful to be part of social systems and and like painful in some ways even, which I never would have been able to identify that back in the day. You know, I had a persona when I was young got to kind of of developed a little bit of like a happy go lucky when just sort of like down for whatever jovial ish kind of kind of persona. But beneath the surface, I wasn't very comfortable or grounded or centered.
Finding Solace in Art and Philosophy
00:03:07
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And so once I started to
00:03:11
Speaker
sort of go off on my own in the world and individuate, you know, around 16, 17, 18, just finding my own way in the world.
00:03:22
Speaker
Naturally, because I didn't feel great in social systems, I started to take a lot of solace in solitude, solace in solitude, solace in solitude, I like that. I'm a big fan of alliteration.
00:03:42
Speaker
always have been.
00:03:45
Speaker
And in in a lot of ways, like I started to just become my own best friend. And this was amplified by the fact that I started to kind of fall in love with I don't know if you call it, I mean, art and music and reading and literature and intellectualism and kind of philosophy, like a young version of philosophy.
00:04:15
Speaker
And so it was, it it felt in a lot of ways very rich to be by myself. You know, I would, I was very
00:04:28
Speaker
You know, I was, I was, I was very intimately connected with the music. I was listening to like very, very, very intimately connected. i was you know I was very connected with the books that I was reading. I loved getting on my bike and just riding around and just kind of immersing myself in the world and in a kind of passive way because I wasn't necessarily engaging, interacting with people, but I loved like immersing myself in this pass away in the world. So.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was rich. It was very rich. And, and, and as I got even older, like in college and some years after college, this, this sort of solitude of this relationship with self just got even deeper and more entrenched and more, more kind of complex, because also like my consciousness was kind of developing even more. So the,
00:05:27
Speaker
the the dynamism and the nuance of the experience was having even more meaning. like I was you know was understanding the stuff that I was reading and listening to in new and exciting ways. like When I was young, when I was 15, 16 years old, I would read interesting books, but I didn't always grasp all of it. you know like I was like almost there. It was like right beyond my fingertips, so it was like it was exciting, but I didn't fully get things. But as I got older,
00:05:55
Speaker
it ed just just I was just developing more. And so it had even more it got i got even more nutrients from, from art and literature and things like that. And then you you add in travel, right, I started to love traveling on my own.
Traveling Alone: A Journey of Discovery
00:06:14
Speaker
And and like, you know, just mostly like local is trips, you know, you've heard me like I've
00:06:24
Speaker
you know, criss-cross the country on Greyhound and driving and um took a lot of Greyhound buses when I was in Rochester, New York, going to college, take the the Greyhound bus, the the express route, for it would leave at 12.20 a.m. from Rochester, Greyhound, and arrive at Grand Central, I think it was 6.20 a.m. I would do that a lot, and I loved it. like i just I was you know i trying to fall, well not just even trying, but yeah I was very inspired by the kind of philosophy and ideology of Jack Kerouac and people like that where I really genuinely wanted to be quote unquote beat the way that Jack Kerouac and his friends were beat like on the the razor's edge of life.
00:07:10
Speaker
like I genuinely liked feeling kind of worn down and and waking up ah in a gray on a Greyhound bus and like not even knowing what state I'm in. I love that. like Or you know being at a Greyhound station at two in the morning, barely able to keep my eyes open and and just being in this like throng of humanity, this massive cross-section of life. like I loved that that. That was what I lived for.
00:07:37
Speaker
and so Yeah, solitude was rich. Solitude was rich, rich, rich, rich, rich. And you know the more that I enjoyed solitude, the the more, in some cases, uncomfortable or painful it would be to be social. And I also have a part of me that is very social. And and this has been pretty consistent. Even when I was in the throes of like deep solitude, there was part of me that still oriented to people and and was like a people person. So it was always a little bit of a mix. But I would say that there was definitely this phenomenon where, like like I just said a second ago, the more that, the richer that the solitude was, the more kind of alienating and uncomfortable being social was.
00:08:33
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And so kind of created this, this dichotomy within me, I became kind of this amphibious creature.
00:08:42
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And, and that, that continued for a long, long, long, long time. And.
00:08:57
Speaker
You know, and and even through some of these phases, I had, I had romantic partners and still I had this kind of amphibious nature to me where like I could, you know, I was in fairly intimate romantic relationships, but still kind of like in my own world. Like, yeah, it's like kind of hard to reach and out there a little bit.
Fatherhood and Shifting Priorities
00:09:27
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But I would say in the last, since I became a papa, um my orientation has shifted a lot because having having a little child who's who's now eight,
00:09:45
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um it's there's just a consistent sense of relating that's required. And, and for me, it's been an incredibly enriching kind of relating.
00:10:03
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Because kind of as I was alluding to a moment ago, like when I was younger, like there was some elements of the social, of social connection and relationship that I liked, but also like it just felt, it just felt, it just didn't feel, I don't know, it just didn't feel super generative. It felt depleting ultimately in most cases, but
00:10:25
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you know, help, you know, raising a ah child.
00:10:31
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It's just, it's just been a totally different kind of enriching experience. um And it's, it's made me just, like i I've the the sort of the, the scales have tipped. I now for the most part feel better when I'm meaningfully connected with others than when I'm in solitude.
00:10:55
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that that i there's a richness that happens now. And and it it's sort of, it's spread outwards. You know, I have my relationship with my son and then it's kind of, that that it's that's given me an orientation to to the goodness of connection. And then that sort of spread outwards and I've sort of now seek connection more regularly in most of my relationships.
00:11:23
Speaker
And, but, and but. I do notice that there's still that old instinct in me that's still part of me kind of craves to just be doing my own thing, to have my own time, to be, to not it just to to be able to sort of be with myself and in my flow and not have to,
00:11:50
Speaker
think about social dynamics or syncing up with another person just being pretty self-dependent. that good like i still It's almost like like an old an old flame that I can't let go of in some ways. like i still like it's not like it like I kind of like fantasize like, oh man, like you know I can't wait till I have a couple free days where i and I'm just gonna walk around the neighborhood and hang out at cafes and go to the record shop and maybe go see a movie by myself and um maybe read by the fireplace or do some painting at the house or listen to some vinyl records. Like those are some of my go-to activities for for Solitude. And I kind of like fantasize about it.
00:12:43
Speaker
ah but But what I'm finding now is that even though I fantasize about it, often when I do have time for myself, and I do get to do some of those things that I just mentioned, some of those activities that have been so rich for me historically, that I end up feeling not good. Like there's a certain element of it that's that's nice because I do think I'm less stressed when it's when I'm just doing my own thing, like my stress levels are lower.
00:13:21
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um Because I think I just have maybe like a sensitive system, and even if I'm enjoying hanging out with someone, like that my my like I'm just more on alert, whereas when I'm with myself, i like my I'm just able to kind of put everything in park. But I notice pretty consistently that at the end of a couple days,
00:13:42
Speaker
If I have a couple days where I'm just kind of doing my own thing and um not with my son, I just feel kind of wonky. Like I just, I don't feel, I feel like uncentered and grounded and kind of like deep into the recesses of my mind.
00:14:01
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And so I guess it's an interesting thing.
00:14:07
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Like just to to orient for 40 years and in a lot of ways, even though, like I said, it's been shifting for the last eight years, but for more or less for 40 years to orient to like, ah, like this is my happy place. Solitude is my happy place. Hanging out at a cafe with a book and a notepad, that's my happy place.
Evolving Need for Connection
00:14:28
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Um, but then to,
00:14:34
Speaker
to have that no to have that as my my instinct, my impulse, my happy place, my deeply worn neurological groove, but then that to have this conflicting reality where in spite of that strong impulse to do that, I also am cognizant that it's it's just not great for my system anymore, that that my needs have shifted. That i i and I don't know if this is what what this means or why this happened, but I just feel like I
00:15:06
Speaker
At this point, I need, like, I i need connection, meaningful human connection. um I need symbiosis, synergy, relationality, healthy dependency. I need those things in order to feel well. They're like, I just don't feel well anymore when I'm self-dependent, fully self-dependent and like full solitude in this mode, full like I am my own best friend mode.
00:15:36
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Anyway, those are some reflections on solitude and relationality.
Introversion vs Extroversion: A Personal Reflection
00:15:43
Speaker
I'd be curious where you where you all are on the spectrum of, of orient and and you know, some people might call this sort of introvert extrovert. I think there's an element of that too. um So yeah, curious about you. um Where you orient. If you do feel a certain peace being alone.
00:16:04
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um
00:16:06
Speaker
how generative is it is for you to be in in social situations, how much you feel like yourself in social situations. Anyway, thanks for listening, y'all. This is JR. Life's effing nuts. One man's stories and ruminations on being human in an upside down world.