In which I retreat from the world, only to find it waiting patiently within me
Solitude is of fashion these days. It has been confused, quite unfairly, with loneliness or, worse, with anti-social eccentricity. To want time alone in a world that rewards constant connection is often seen as either selfish or suspicious. And yet, I’ve come to think of solitude not as a withdrawal from life, but as a re-entry into it. A kind of homecoming to myself.
There was a time when I, like many, regarded solitude as something that happened by accident. A cancelled dinner. A weekend without plans. A walk taken alone only because everyone else was busy. It carried the faint whiff of failure. But as the years have ripened, and with them, I suppose, my tolerance for silence, I have come to recognise solitude for what it is: a gift, and a necessary one at that.
I remember once escaping to a small caravann near the coast of Cornwall. The kind of place where even the sheep look contemplative. I had taken no laptop, no agenda, and only two novels, both of which I finished by the second evening. What remained was time. Acres of it. I took long walks along the cliffs. I made tea slowly. I listened to gulls, and wind, and the peculiar music of my own unhurried thoughts.
At first, it was awkward. One doesn’t quite know how to talk to oneself after so many years of polite, surface-level acquaintance. But by the third day, I noticed something begin to settle. I stopped performing. I stopped narrating my life to an invisible audience. I simply… was.
You see, solitude has this curious capacity to strip away the noise, not only the external variety, but the internal as well. The shoulds and musts. The second-hand expectations. The social choreography. All of it begins to fall away like a coat no longer needed in the sun. And what remains is your own truer voice, shy as it may be at first. The one that speaks in sighs and subtle longings. The voice Howard Thurman called the voice of the genuine.
Now, it must be said that solitude is not the same as escape. It is not shirking responsibility or abandoning those who depend on us. Nor is it wallowing in melancholy or building walls too high to hear another’s knock. Solitude is not an indulgence. It is an interior room, quiet, necessary, and too often neglected, where we meet the deeper truths of our lives.
In solitude, the soul has a chance to speak. And if you listen long enough, it will remind you that you are not your inbox, nor your résumé, nor the expectations of others. You are a living mystery, unfolding quietly. A being, not a value proposition or a brand.
And here lies the paradox: it is only when we learn to be alone that we become capable of real presence with others. Without solitude, our connections risk becoming needy or performative, attempts to fill an emptiness we haven’t faced. But when we are at home in our own company, we are no longer afraid of silence, either ours or theirs. We can be with others not to complete ourselves, but to accompany them.
There is a fine old tradition, often lost in modern spirituality, of seeking the wilderness. The desert monks, the mountain hermits, the poets with their rivers and pine trees. They were not fleeing the world; they were trying to see it more clearly. And in solitude, they found what we still long for today: a clarity of vision, a gentleness of heart, and the courage to live honestly.
So let us reframe solitude. Not as punishment or pathos, but as practice. A way of returning to ourselves with kindness. A sabbath for the soul. A place where the masks fall off and the breath deepens.
If you can find it, even for a few minutes each day, treasure it. A walk without purpose. A room with a door that shuts. A cup of something hot, drunk slowly, without distraction. These are not luxuries. They are invitations.
And if solitude feels awkward at first, take heart. You are not doing it wrong. You are simply reacquainting yourself with the person you have always been.
Let the stillness come. Let the quiet grow spacious. And there, in that uncluttered grace, let yourself be gently found.
