If you forget yourself, do you still exist? If you exist because others remember you, are you you?
I was reading about Christopher Knight, a former recluse and burglar who claimed to have lived without human contact for 27 years in the woods of Maine.
“It’s complicated,” he said. “Solitude bestows an increase in something valuable. I can’t dismiss that idea. Solitude increased my perception. But here’s the tricky thing: when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. There was no audience, no one to perform for. There was no need to define myself. I became irrelevant.”
“My desires dropped away. I didn’t long for anything. I didn’t even have a name. To put it romantically, I was completely free.”
Is solitude similar to loneliness or does solitude give way to loneliness to slowly seep in? I have been living alone for a week now in a fairly large house for a city, and I have been drifting from solitude to loneliness, sometimes not able to point a finger at which is which. The mornings are calm, no rush to go anywhere or fix lunch for anyone. There was freedom of time and the luxury to do nothing.
But I would still find myself randomly making a call to my parents at odd hours or just scroll Instagram to see what others are up to. I would write something and post it or share a story of what I had for breakfast; quietly anticipating a response, a thumbs up, or a discussion. I would look forward to the ping on my phone as if I waiting for someone at the door.
As much as we would want to deny it somewhere it is true that we want others to witness our lives. Living in complete isolation in the woods, a poet would want her poems to be read by someone across all the oceans and lands. We document our lives, write stories and poems, and click pictures so that we can reach out to others. Now, it is very difficult to know why we do that. Why do we have the need to share our moments with others? Is it somewhere a cure for our loneliness?
Are we inherently all lonely even though we are very happy and content in our solitude? Right now I am happy and alone at home, but I will still post this so that you can be a part of my happiness and solitude.
So are we all liars then?
