On being alone

 The pandemic has confronted many folks with a novel sort of isolation. Being alone with yourself makes introspection and self-awareness difficult to escape, and for many people, that's what they spend a lot of their waking hours doing-escaping themselves.

There are many paths to introspection and self-awareness that don't require involuntary exile or quarantine. Regardless, developing your own compass is an important life skill that serves well in the age of plague.

"In other words, you’ve got to quit seeing solitude as an experiment in subtraction, and start seeing it as an experiment in addition. What you’re adding is your self — a true self, because at last it’s you who’s building it, not anyone else. You’re no longer looking to other people for their attention or approval.

The psychologist D.W. Winnicott often drew a distinction between the “authentic self” and the “false self.” Without realizing it, he said, we look to other people to scaffold our sense of who we are. It’s they who perform the construction of our identity. When we’re alone — when their judgments and preferences are no longer there to shape our self-concept — it tends to break down. That can be terrifying. But it can also be a gift. Because when the false self falls away, it leaves space for you to build a more authentic self." https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/11/21212845/how-to-be-alone-coronavirus-quarantine-isolation-solitude?fbclid=IwAR2NXx-jKXwts1mOXbUmkYZrCeNRjCgiQwElTjasK4xe5DuAAkHNCuqzqYg