The Pleasures of Solitude, the Pains of Language

Last weekend, I spent a total of 60 hours without seeing another person.

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Well, sure, I might have seen someone. A car turned around at the end of my road, and a boat made its way to the cove out back. But in both cases I would have needed binoculars to make eye contact.

I certainly didn't speak with anyone. I even went for a three mile walk down the street and through the woods. No cars. No other walkers.

Most of the summer residents have gone off for the season and the people who remain behind stay tucked away behind closed doors. I can certainly understand that.

Blissful solitude.

Then on Monday I commuted back into the city, where I'm packed in with millions to the square mile, riding trains and navigating cross-walks.

With the exception of work, this is just as solitary. The city-dweller is protected in their anonymity by the fact that there are simply too many people to interact with in a meaningful way - so it is simplest not to interact with anyone. People agree on this without talking about it.

City life is solitude with a different view.

Back at home, I value silence above all things. And praise to the wine-dark sea, there is a lot of it here.

I don't even bother to play music anymore because there's nothing to drown out.

Music is made for riding the train. While I would prefer to listen to the rumble of the wheels and the screech of the brakes, they're not loud enough to drown out the inane chatter, and the business conversations carried out over cell-phone, and the announcements of every stop over the P.A. So I put something ambient or industrial on the earbuds and crank the volume to "make me deaf, please!"

But I love that moment When you get off the train at South Station and walk along a platform that passes between two idling diesels. There's a deep-belly roar with just a touch of rhythm to it. It gets into the stomach, under the sternum, and massages you from the inside, working upwards. This is the silence of a noise too vast to admit interlopers.

In a less suspicious time I could linger there for hours with my eyes closed, taking it in like the roar of the ocean. But transportation security looks suspiciously on such behaviour today. "Don't worry, officer. I'm just standing here enjoying the quiet."

If you want to be left alone, it's best to stay on the move.

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I celebrate places that are noisy enough to obliterate language. Not bars and clubs and such - places where people are trying to communicate. I'm talking about factories and seashores and train-yards. Places where the roar of something inevitable drowns out the need for talking about it.

I'm not sure why conversation has always felt like assault to me, but I'm convinced there are too damn many words floating around. I do my best not to contribute to the flood.

Writing is different. No one has to read it. But someone talking within earshot of another is always a non-consensual exchange.

It's weird how misanthropic I've gotten. Well, maybe it isn't. It's not like it's a big change. I can be social when I want to (or let's be honest - when I have to), but it takes a tremendous amount of energy. Eight hours of work is more than enough to satisfy any social needs. I concentrate my efforts in the back room to minimize interaction whenever possible, and with this escape, I seem to have struck a comfortable balance.

I know this isn't a healthy way to live. Any psychologist will tell you about the importance of family and friend groups, and any businessman understands how essential a network of contacts is. But I'm too old now to try changing myself to fit popular conceptions of healthy behaviour.

I admire my boss for the way he can network and pull off big sales. He's an introvert too, but the kind of introvert who belongs to country clubs and hosts cigar dinners and produces three kids after the age of 50, and who drives his son to little-league games and then sits in his car reading. "I don't mind baseball," he tells me. "It's the only time I get to myself."

But three kids! Can you imagine? I would kill myself for want of silence.

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Bartleby was right. Like him, I've never wanted to participate in things. Team sports are like an exercise in brainwashing and identity dissolution. Spending money on stuff - especially food - makes me feel guilty and depressed. Investing feels like gambling, gambling is self-torture, and insurance is sure, slow suicide. These things people do to amuse themselves! As soon as any kind of club accepts me as a member I'm relentless in finding some reason to decide it's a sham or a cult. And besides, belonging to a club leaves a lot less time for silent moments alone.

The same goes for families. Marriage is a fair compromise - you can get comfortable enough with someone that you don't have to say too much. But dating? Romance? Affairs? Why go to all the trouble for such a temporary thrill?

And then there's politics. We just got through our mid-term elections in the US. Listening to people talk about them is like rubbing my face on a cheese grater. Never have so many words done so little to serve so few.

You get one vote, dudes. Cast it and shut up.

Unfortunately, my growing distaste for words is making it harder to get interested in books. Blah blah blah. All that wasted paper. Books are a window into other peoples' noise. Why would I work so hard to eliminate conflict and clutter from my own life, and then seek out the conflicts of others?

In the case of fiction, these conflicts never actually occurred! Some author just figured the world needed more drama and made a bunch of it up!

I used to love reading, but it's a chore, now.

Unfortunately the alternatives are not much better.

Consider the TV. It provides all the mental clutter of books, plus noise and color.

Do you know that there are people who leave the TV running all the time? Even when they're not watching it? It just runs all day, blathering in the background because they feel lonely without it. They need the chatter.

They're mad.

If I step into a house and hear a TV running, I'm instantly depressed and anxious. Like, borderline panic-attack anxious. I might be expected to have a conversation with someone, but It's impossible for me to focus on anything except for the noise of the TV.

Words linger in my mind long after I've heard them - and I still remember crap that I watched on the TV decades before. I don't want to let more of that stuff in. I know that it will echo around my head for the rest of my life.

I've considered that maybe I should start memorizing poetry, lately. Maybe if I fill my head with some choice language it'll crowd out the stuff that doesn't matter. But I wish I could find something to do the job that didn't contain so many words.

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My persistent memory for language is also why I avoid conflict. I can remember every argument I've ever had and still get angry about most of them. Fights in elementary school, the time I finally stood up to my step-father (and he said he was going to move out but then never did), arguments with my grandfather, managerial conversations to placate unreasonable customers - they're all still with me, red rotting marks permanently blazed onto my timeline.

(It's too bad I can't remember the peaceful times with such sharp lucidity. When were they, again?)

It's amazing to me that people can "hash things out" with a few harsh words and then move on. I've never understood those families that are constantly at each other with nagging and chiding, and still somehow get together for the holidays. Or those friends who come to blows over something and then hug and head to the pub together the following weekend.

In my family, big fights end things forever. We keep the resentments under the surface until they boil over. And then we move out.

Our line is dying out fast and it's just as well.

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Is it possible to have a conversation where you don't feel the other person is trying to manipulate you? and get something from you - something you'll never be able to recover? Is it possible to talk without feeling like you're under attack?

Does every conversation have to feel like a trial? Is it possible to just experience words, and let them wash past you as if they don't matter? Is it even possible to, say, ignore somebody?

I'd love to have this ability. The ability to not hear, to forget words.

But once a word is said it is with me forever.

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Then again, why shouldn't words matter? If someone says a thing, shouldn't they mean that thing? Those words will forever linger in the air at that moment. There's no erasing history.

Shouldn't we think long and hard before we open our mouths?

This is why I prefer to drink alone. It's best to be stone-cold sober, when words are in the air.

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