Benefits of Being Alone | A Stoic’s Guide to Loneliness

To a young, unwise soul, the prospect of being alone might seem like a frightening ordeal. We as humans evolved to be social animals, we crave the company and attention of other humans. Be it our mate, our family or friends, or in some instances even the public at large, we need to have contact with people in order to keep our mind stable. Prolonged periods of loneliness can plant in the heart of man the seed of insanity, of cynicism and greed. This being said, there is also a case to be made for the healing and spiritually enriching power of being alone. While in youth, with all of its foolishness and hormonal angst comes the need to be accepted into society, in older age the need for loneliness also emerges, and as one ages this need becomes more and more prevalent. It is exactly this striving for loneliness that makes old man so wise, it’s the time spent alone, in deep introspection which unlocks the inner wisdom of the soul from which nothing is hidden, and thus old and lonely men often get the title of ‘wizards’ in fiction, since the great wisdom they posses is to us younger men still on the path of manliness seen as a magical, almost occult knowledge.
When a man spends time with himself, he comes to know and appreciate himself more. When meeting a new acquaintance, we often undervalue them because we know so little about them, once we sit one-to-one with that person, and we get to know them a little better, their true value and virtue is revealed to us, and they might even become so dear to us that we may call them friends, thus this also happens to ourselves, the less time we spend alone with our own self and our own thoughts, the less we value ourselves, and by spending time alone we get to know ourselves better and to see and judge our own virtues and sins to our own standards, thus we become more dear to ourselves and our own inner-self becomes our friend.

In our modern world, being alone is seen as a thing to be avoided and shunned. People who prefer the company of themselves are often portrayed as self-obssesed, socially awkward lunatics, for this we have to thank the modern media which seems to be the main tool for keeping the spiritual and emotional awakening of man at bay. I will argue the exact opposite of this, spending more time alone, not only increases your social status, but also helps you achieve your long term goals more quickly. In today’s age of social media, being seen and liked by other people is reduced to the most extreme level of vanity. What used to be deep spiritual experience of friendship and understanding, almost brotherhood between two men, now become a swipe on a screen or a press of a button in order to give one another the social status that each of them craves. By stepping away from this anti-social social world and into the comfort of our own company, we can re-develop the healthy need for real social connection with our fellow man. By almost not caring about the company of others, we stop the unhealthy craving to be accepted by people who mean nothing to us, we develop our masculine frame of mind and Stoic control of our own self to the point that when we do decide to interact with another man we can do it with a cool head, thinking about our words and actions, and the connection that we wish to form with them, instead of endlessly trying to please them in order for them to like us on some vain and Platonic level. The importance of developing and keeping the masculine frame, and Stoic control of every situation you as a man get yourself in I discus in the following article: Masculine Frame Control, it’s a good prelude to the discussion we’re having here.

I got inspired to write about this topic after listening to the educated and wise ramblings of a great writer who makes youtube videos, I agree with a lot of the points he puts forward on the topic of being alone:

 

Aside from paradoxically helping you form better and richer inter-human relationships, being alone also help you become more Stoic and helps you develop the alpha male mindset which we as men need to develop in order to achieve our full masculine potential, given to us by nature’s mandate.
Being alone, as I’ve said earlier, will help you to know yourself more, and the importance of knowing your own self and being a friend to your own inner persona is key in order to balance your life so that it comes to harmony with nature. Each of us has his own nature, his own soul in the nonspiritual sense of the word. We are all a person for ourselves, all men are alike in the masculine virtues for which we must strive, but are different in the path we need to take in order to achieve them. We need to find for ourselves which path of life is most in tune with our inner nature, which is why disconnecting from the outside world and reconnecting with ourselves by spending more time alone is so important for the men in the modern world. As wise Socrates once said: “Know thyself!“, this message echoes through the ages to the ear of the modern man, who now more than ever needs to find his own nature, and set his own path according to it.

For many of our modern comforts we need to thank the wise man of ages past, for the ideas they developed while being alone. Aloness is much different than loneliness, being alone is a gift giving to men in order to have the time and space needed to develop his own mind, and to work on his own thoughts. If you allow yourself to be shaped by outside forces and your mind to be molded by opinions of other, you are nothing but a sheep waiting to be sheered by her master. Being alone helps you to re-think the endless stream of information that constantly comes in from the outside world, and decide on what is true and right, and what is false and wrong. By being alone you develop your sense of virtue and morality, as well as your sense of Stoic indifference and unmoving strength. Most people today blindly proclaim that everything being served to them as truth is the truth, failing to develop their own morality, they will fall to the pits of hell in their own sins only to please the people around them, to gain the social status they crave. Remove yourself from this system, develop your own mind, your own reason, only by being alone can you become the wolf among sheep, the Stoic alpha among the weak men of modernity.

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For more resources of the benefits of being alone, check out the links below:

• Some Stoic Musings on Loneliness by Kevin Vost

• Things To Do By Yourself

• When We Are Alone With Ourselves