{"id":993,"date":"2012-08-08T09:57:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T13:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=993"},"modified":"2012-08-08T09:57:18","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T13:57:18","slug":"instructions-for-being-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2012\/08\/08\/instructions-for-being-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Instructions For Being Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"800_Hanging_onto_the_Kitchen_Table\"<\/a>
<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

by Zo\u00c3\u00ab Pollock<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

After a bad breakup, Tracy Clark-Flory consulted<\/a> the experts for some advice:<\/p>\n

\n

I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be good at this alone thing by now. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m an only child, for crying out loud. Instead, on the heels of another split, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m amazed at how difficult just being by myself can be. I have friends \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they are wonderful \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but I feel a suffocating solitude at the end of the night, in the morning or at any moment of the day that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t scheduled with distraction. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this way when I was coupled. Just the knowledge that I had \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a person\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to call my own (even though I know in my bones that you can never truly call another person \u00e2\u20ac\u0153your own\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) was a comfort; that knowledge itself was a constant companion.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Judy Ford, author of Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent<\/em><\/a>, points the way after the jump:<\/p>\n

\n

Her practical tips for conquering solitude are to get creative (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153creativity is the cure of loneliness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), push yourself to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153do something you have never done before\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (like taking yourself out to dinner), admit your loneliness to others (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153you might be surprised that they feel lonely too\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get cozy with the gaps,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d those empty spaces in between plans, and remind yourself, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Loneliness is not going to kill me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d These aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t easy fixes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and may induce eye-rolls from self-help haters \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re crucial to happiness, she argues: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153To experience wholeness, first we experience the void.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Slate<\/em> excerpts<\/a> part of Michael Cobb\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Single: Arguments for the Uncoupled<\/em><\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Certainly being single is a variation on being individual. Even Thoreau had to keep reassuring us that he was not too lonely in the woods: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumble-bee.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure if he can prove or commit too many pathetic fallacies in these comparisons. Such rhetoric betrays a sense that the question of his loneliness is still very much open, and something about individualism must be thought about as we consider the single.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/strong>We’ve previously covered Cobb’s book on the Dish here<\/a> and here.<\/a><\/p>\n

(Photo courtesy of Lee Materazzi<\/a>, via Flavorwire<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan http:\/\/andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com\/2012\/08\/instructions-for-being-alone.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Daily+Dish%29<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Zo\u00c3\u00ab Pollock After a bad breakup, Tracy Clark-Flory consulted the experts for some advice: I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be good at this alone thing by now. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m an only child, for crying out loud. Instead, on the heels of another split, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m amazed at how difficult just being by myself can be. I have friends … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Instructions For Being Alone”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[182,6,183],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-reader","tag-andrew-sullivan","tag-ifttt","tag-the-daily-dish-by-andrew-sullivan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2skW4-g1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}