{"id":11639,"date":"2018-03-19T02:52:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T02:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=11639"},"modified":"2018-03-20T03:00:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T03:00:50","slug":"a-history-of-loneliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/a-history-of-loneliness\/","title":{"rendered":"A history of loneliness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amelia S. Worsley<\/a>, Amherst College<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Is loneliness our modern malaise?<\/p>\n

Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says<\/a> the most common pathology he saw during his years of service \u201cwas not heart disease or diabetes; it was loneliness.\u201d <\/p>\n

Chronic loneliness, some say<\/a>, is like \u201csmoking 15 cigarettes a day.\u201d It \u201ckills more people than obesity<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Because loneliness is now considered a public health<\/a> issue \u2013 and even an epidemic<\/a> \u2013 people are exploring its causes and trying to find solutions.<\/p>\n

While writing a book on the history of how poets wrote about loneliness in the Romantic Period<\/a>, I discovered that loneliness is a relatively new concept and once had an easy cure. However, as the concept\u2019s meaning has transformed, finding solutions has become harder.<\/p>\n

Returning to the origins of the word \u2013 and understanding how its meaning has changed through time \u2013 gives us a new way to think about modern loneliness, and the ways in which we might address it. <\/p>\n

The dangers of venturing into \u2018lonelinesses\u2019<\/h2>\n

Although loneliness may seem like a timeless, universal experience, it seems to have originated in the late 16th century, when it signaled the danger created by being too far from other people. <\/p>\n

In early modern Britain, to stray too far from society was to surrender the protections it provided. Distant forests and mountains inspired fear, and a lonely space was a place in which you might meet someone who could do you harm, with no one else around to help.<\/p>\n

In order to frighten their congregations out of sin, sermon writers asked people to imagine themselves in \u201clonelinesses\u201d \u2013 places like hell, the grave or the desert.<\/p>\n

Yet well into the 17th century, the words \u201cloneliness\u201d and \u201clonely\u201d rarely appeared in writing. In 1674, the naturalist John Ray compiled a glossary<\/a> of infrequently used words. He included \u201cloneliness\u201d in his list, defining it as a term used to describe places and people \u201cfar from neighbours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n A Gustave Dor\u00e9 engraving for an 1866 edition of John Milton\u2019s \u2018Paradise Lost.\u2019<\/span>
\n Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

John Milton\u2019s 1667 epic poem \u201cParadise Lost<\/a>\u201d features one of the first lonely characters in all of British literature: Satan. On his journey to the garden of Eden to tempt Eve, Satan treads \u201clonely steps\u201d out of hell. But Milton isn\u2019t writing about Satan\u2019s feelings; instead, he\u2019s emphasizing that he\u2019s crossing into the ultimate wilderness, a space between hell and Eden where no angel has previously ventured.<\/p>\n

Satan describes<\/a> his loneliness in terms of vulnerability: \u201cFrom them I go \/ This uncouth errand sole, and one for all \/ Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread \/ Th\u2019 unfounded deep.\u201d <\/p>\n

The dilemma of modern loneliness<\/h2>\n

Even if we now enjoy the wilderness as a place of adventure and pleasure, the fear of loneliness persists. The problem has simply moved into our cities.<\/p>\n

Many are trying to solve it by bringing people physically closer to their neighbors. Studies<\/a> point to a spike in the number of people who live alone and the breakdown of family and community structures. <\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Theresa May has set her sights on \u201ccombating\u201d loneliness and appointed<\/a> a minister of loneliness to do just that in January. There is even a philanthropy<\/a> called the \u201cCampaign to End Loneliness.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the drive to cure loneliness oversimplifies its modern meaning.<\/p>\n

In the 17th century, when loneliness was usually relegated to the space outside the city, solving it was easy. It merely required a return to society.<\/p>\n

However, loneliness has since moved inward \u2013 and has become much harder to cure. Because it\u2019s taken up residence inside minds, even the minds of people living in bustling cities, it can\u2019t always be solved by company. <\/p>\n

Modern loneliness isn\u2019t just about being physically removed from other people. Instead, it\u2019s an emotional state of feeling apart from others \u2013 without necessarily being so. <\/p>\n

Someone surrounded by people, or even accompanied by friends or a lover, can complain of feelings of loneliness. The wilderness is now inside of us. <\/p>\n

Populating the wilderness of the mind<\/h2>\n

The lack of an obvious cure to loneliness is part of the reason why it is considered to be so dangerous today: The abstraction is frightening. <\/p>\n

Counterintuitively, however, the secret to dealing with modern loneliness might lie not in trying to make it disappear but in finding ways to dwell within its abstractions, talk through its contradictions and seek out others who feel the same way.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s certainly important to pay attention to the structures that have led people (especially elderly, disabled and other vulnerable people) to be physically isolated and therefore unwell, finding ways to destigmatize loneliness is also crucial. <\/p>\n

Acknowledging that loneliness is a profoundly human and sometimes uncurable experience rather than a mere pathology might allow people \u2013 especially lonely people \u2013 to find commonality.<\/p>\n

In order to look at the \u201cepidemic of loneliness\u201d as more than just an \u201cepidemic of isolation,\u201d it\u2019s important to consider why the spaces of different people\u2019s minds might feel like wildernesses in the first place. <\/p>\n

Everyone experiences loneliness differently, and many find it difficult to describe. As the novelist Joseph Conrad wrote<\/a>, \u201cWho knows what true loneliness is \u2013 not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask.\u201d Learning about the range of ways others experience loneliness could help mitigate the kind of disorientation Conrad describes. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n Andrew Wyeth\u2019s \u2018Baleen\u2019 (1982).<\/span>
\n Mia Feigelson<\/a>, CC BY-NC-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reading literature can also make the mind feel like less of a wilderness. The books we read need not themselves be about loneliness, though there are lots of examples of these, from \u201cFrankenstein<\/a>\u201d to \u201cInvisible Man<\/a>.\u201d Reading allows readers to connect with characters who might also be lonely; but more importantly, it offers a way to make the mind feel as though it is populated.<\/p>\n

Literature also offers examples of how to be lonely together. British Romantic poets often copied each other\u2019s loneliness and found it productive and fulfilling. <\/p>\n

There are opportunities for community in loneliness when we share it, whether in face-to-face interactions or through text. Though loneliness can be debilitating, it has come a long way from its origins as a synonym for isolation. <\/p>\n

\"TheAs the poet Ocean Vuong wrote<\/a>, \u201cloneliness is still time spent with the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amelia S. Worsley<\/a>, Assistant Professor of English, Amherst College<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amelia S. Worsley, Amherst College Is loneliness our modern malaise? Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says the most common pathology he saw during his years of service \u201cwas not heart disease or diabetes; it was loneliness.\u201d Chronic loneliness, some say, is like \u201csmoking 15 cigarettes a day.\u201d It \u201ckills more people than obesity.\u201d Because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[4013,137,149,1740,2224,3770,2033,4212,3171],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11641,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11639\/revisions\/11641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}