I'm often amazed by just how few people in this world are truly at peace with themselves. I mean, they are content "as they are" and are not trying to impress anyone, nor to they depend on anything external in order to feel happy.
I first started contemplating this when we were a few months into COVID lockdowns, and a huge number of people were starting to talk about how they were going stir crazy with cabin fever, and with the fact that they couldn't get out and about with their social connections.
Reading between the lines, what was often evident was that many were outright freaking out at having to be alone with their thoughts rather than being able to distract themselves with social activities that kept them too busy to think about the deeper meanings and implications of their existence.
On the surface, this might sound like it's simply an issue of somebody being introverted versus somebody being extraverted but there's more to it than that.
Introverts can also be very ill at ease with their own company.
In turn, it makes me wonder how much of our lives we spend engaged in some form of trauma dumping, even if we're not entirely aware that we're doing so.
I am — by nature — 100% introverted but I have no dislike of people and I like to socialize, albeit preferably with one person at a time. My social circle it was fairly small and carefully picked in the sense that it takes a lot for somebody to make it inside my inner circle.
But I don't avoid the company of others.
However, I have never been bothered by just having to outright be by myself... including for an extended period of time. As I said, I like people but if somebody came along tomorrow and told me that I wouldn't be able to engage with another person for a full year it wouldn't bother me a great deal. Yes, of course, I would miss Mrs. Denmarkguy but the idea of being by myself with my own thoughts does not scare me, even slightly.
Over the years, I've had a fairly long list of people — including a number of therapists — try to persuade me that I'm "in denial" of something. They cite studies of people who become permanently brain damaged as a result of being put into solitary confinement, for example.
While I've examined that possibility, I have usually come back to them with the contrary possibility that every population is going to have a few outliers that don't fit the general rule of human behavior.
Moreover, the idea that you don't fit the general rules of human behavior doesn't necessarily mean that you're mentally ill or that there's something wrong with you. After all, those boxes are artificial constructs.
That seems to be one of the problems we face in today's world: everybody wants to stuff everybody else into a neatly defined little box, and when somebody doesn't fit any of the boxes we all tend to get nervous about it.
I'm satisfied that people actually belong in a box of one, namely themselves, and I fit in a box of one that happens to be me.
Is it self indulgent to not want to fit into the prearranged patterns of the world? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm not going to try to pass judgment on that.
But what I do know is that solitude is a very comfortable place for me, just like hanging out with a friend (whom I can relate to) is also a very comfortable place. And I'm OK with that.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Sunday!
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Created at 2025.11.15 23:53 PST
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