“Language has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.”

—Paul Tillich

“Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.”

—Nikola Tesla

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.

The Long Loneliness

It is the loneliness of longing for the love that is God, the loneliness that follows saying ‘no’ to the easy path so you can say ‘yes’ to the good one.

The Solution to the Long Loneliness? Love.

In time I recognized this, that I was lonely, and that my loneliness was entirely self-inflicted, but by the time I did I couldn’t do anything about it. I felt weighed down by some kind of heavier gravity. I felt like a satellite that’d fallen out of orbit — slowly drifting away into darkness, further and further away from the place I used to be.

The Irony of Loneliness

“The problem was that I was isolated — both physically and in that ethereal way other people likely wouldn’t understand — and in that isolation, I was helpless.”

—Dan Moore, The Irony of Loneliness

I am an introvert. I know this about myself. I enjoy being alone. Moreover — as is true of most introverts, I think — I romanticize the idea of being alone. Upon moving to the city, I imagined that it would say something about myself, being OK with being alone, as if an appreciation for solitude acts as some kind of evidence that one is stoic, and strong, and confident.

As is the case with most things one desires so solipsistically, however, once I obtained the solitude I sought, I found only disappointment, and sadness, and guilt, and anxiety. Which is to say that I found loneliness.

The Irony Of Loneliness, By Daniel Moore