Why are we so lonely, and what is the difference between loneliness and Solitude?

Why are we so lonely? #

Because the way we live goes against how humans evolved. For most of human history people lived in tribes of people they knew well; living side by side with strangers began only after the FallThe Fall. The catastrophe at the root of the whole diagnosis: the shift from animist, egalitarian hunter-gatherer life to owning, agricultural Taker culture. In domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, cutting ourselves off from Mother Earth (Power-loss) and from parts of our own nature (soul-loss). When dated precisely, the Fall begins with the first city-state cultures, around 4000 BCE (Domestication begins earlier, with the Neolithic). A sickness, not our true nature. ‘Fallen culture’ is used interchangeably with Taker culture; the Great Rupture is a looser alternate name. Read the full answer, as people moved into towns and cities, and the nuclear family is a recent invention.¹ To cope, we join an interlocking network of ‘tribes’, colleagues, neighbours, the gym, online ‘friends’, but these are usually transitory: “Friends, work colleagues and neighbours all come and go.” And social media, which was meant to connect us, “is having the opposite effect.”¹

The figures are stark. A YouGov poll found that 22% of millennials say they have no friends at all, against 15% of Generation X and 9% of Baby Boomers; a survey for The Economist and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about 22% of adults in the United States often or always feel lonely or isolated; and regular loneliness is put at 40 to 45% of adults, against 11 to 20% in the 1980s. (The 2010 AARP survey behind that figure covered Americans aged 45 and over, and found 35% of them lonely.) In hunter-gatherer times, on this account, the figure would have been zero.¹ “All the evidence is that we have never been lonelier and are becoming more so.”² See What do tribe and belonging mean, and what is the shaman’s role in a community?

Is loneliness the same as being alone? #

No. “A common misconception about loneliness is that it is about being alone. In fact, loneliness and being alone are not the same thing at all, for loneliness is something that can affect people when they are surrounded by others, and even when they have a good social network.” It is about the quality, not the quantity, of our relationships.³

Nor is it mainly a matter of poor social skills: “studies show that teaching social skills has only a modest effect on levels of loneliness.” With over eight billion people on the planet, “we have never been more surrounded by people.” What has gone wrong is the kind of contact we have: “Clearly, something has gone very wrong with our inter-human relationships.”³

Why does loneliness hurt so much? #

Because for our ancestors it was dangerous. “Loneliness triggers in us the same primal alarm bells as things like hunger, thirst, physical pain and danger.” In hunter-gatherer times you could survive alone for a while, but not for long, and so “we are hard-wired to perceive loneliness as a physical threat; a threat to our very existence.” The research links loneliness to stress hormones, poor sleep, inflammation, weaker immunity, heart disease, strokes and diabetes, with some studies suggesting it raises the risk of dying early by as much as thirty per cent.⁴

Why can other people be so hard to be around? #

Partly because of the state of modern minds. “Hunter-gatherer people often say that we modern people are crazy”, and they mean it literally: compared with theirs, our collective mental health is poor, and so workplaces, committees and families tend to be hard work. There is a baseline of stress around other people that even the most sociable carry, and like the frog in slowly heating water, we have come to think it normal: “when we look at hunter-gatherer cultures, we can see it is not normal at all. It is not how we used to be.”⁵ Our modern need for privacy is part of the same picture, a product of crowding and of the state of people’s emotional health. See Is shamanic work suited to introverts?

What is solitude, and can it be healthy? #

Solitude is time apart from other human beings, and it can be nourishing rather than lonely. Much shamanic work is done this way: “a great deal that can be done, and in fact needs to be done, in a solitary way. This is solitary in the sense of being away from other human beings, but not solitary in the sense that you will always be working with your Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer and other spirit guides”. The shaman, too, “is someone who is often at the edge of society and of the tribe”, whilst working for the good of the community.⁶

Some people need more of it than others. Paul Francis is an introvert and an otrovert who, after teaching, needs “a lot of solitude and quiet to recharge”, and spends his days writing, walking on the beach or in the hills, watching birds, clouds and sunsets, gardening and talking to his GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this.⁷ Time like that is full of company of other kinds. See What is an otrovert?

Is our loneliness only about other people? #

No, and this is where shamanism sees most deeply. Being in the Lower-World “heals a deep sense of loneliness, isolation, and separation in us that, as modern humans, we all carry. This is a wound most people feel deeply, but do not know what it is, or what causes it (let alone how to cure it).” We try to fill the hole with food, drugs, shopping, work, television and the internet, but “It is a wound caused by our separation; by our loss of the experience of interconnection.” Reconnecting with the more-than-human heals it.⁸

The eco-depth psychologist Bill Plotkin describes what happens when people first talk with a lizard, an elk, a juniper, the wind or a rock: “a kind of isolation you didn’t know you suffered has vanished.”⁹ Talking about animism on the podcast This Wild and Precious Life, Paul has said much the same, that perhaps the deepest healing animism offers, in a disconnected culture where people live in bubbles of existential angst, is realising that you belong here, that you are welcomed, that you have a unique contribution to make, and that the beings around you want to help. See How do we reconnect with the other-than-human world and heal cultural Power-loss?

What can help with loneliness? #

Healthy templates, and real belonging. Loneliness is a sign of how much we have lost our way, but it is “another thing that shamanism can help us with, by providing healthy templates on which to model things”.¹⁰ One of those templates is the Lower-World Tribe, where you can experience “what it is like to be part of a tribe where you really belong, and are loved, valued, accepted, and truly treasured.”¹¹ Another is the Patterns of healthy groups, which show what human company can be like when it works. And the other Peoples, the Animals, Plants and Stones, are company too. See What is the Lower-World Tribe? and What makes a healthy group or tribe?