I hypothesize that underlying every “how to” themed article is a dark secret (other than than those that I write, I know it to be the case for me). We don’t write these articles because we have definitively perfected the art of XYZ, we write these articles because we are still in the throes of the trial and error process, and we hope that the guidelines we currently subscribe too will be good enough, and perhaps by documenting them and sharing them with the world it will hold us accountable to consistently follow them. For example, in my “how (not) to run a marathon” post, I stress the importance of limiting the number of miles you run to less than you think you can. In my painful experience of doing the opposite, I suspect that this is reasonable guideline for anyone who does not want to hurt themselves, and I hope by publishing it I will follow it. I hope.
This post is no different. I am trying to learn how to be alone. Floating in my brain are ill-formed thoughts on how best to do this, and this article is an attempt to use this cloud of thoughts as raw material to construct set of guidelines that reflect my up-to-date, but by no means perfected, learnings on the subject.
Practise connecting to something, just not with people
Playing music, listening to music, writing, reading stories.
Limit phone time
Trying to connect with online people asynchronously when you would rather be with real life people in real-time does not fill the gap.
Practise doing nothing when you really want to do something
The things we do to hide from our thoughts: television, scrolling, working, eating, various substances.
Stare out of the window. Walk around the block. Just sit on the couch until you feel a gentle curiosity to something that makes you feel connected, as opposed to the frantic urge to numb your loneliness.
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