~PSA/minor rant~ These days, individuality is more prized than ever. However, weirdly enough, most of us haven't learned to celebrate our time alone as part of it. With screens, and cameras, and social media at all angles, intrusive has become inclusive. Even though we can be “connected” to our people and our society at any moment of the day, we really are alone more than I think we’d like to admit. We read alone. We think alone. We choose how to express ourselves alone. We look obsessively at our phones alone. We build our online alternate personas alone. Does that make you uncomfortable? If we can do all of this and so much more alone, when is it that we can confront, analyze, and understand the only thing left with us when we are so alone? Loneliness is a painful, humiliating feeling, and one which has become increasingly unfashionable. But it is a feeling that pushes us to connect with our inner selves. A feeling that becomes a bridge to discovering our true selves. Community is rightly revered, but within community we shouldn't undermine the strength in our own autonomy. Those feelings you feel when you are alone, totally disconnected and utterly alone, those feelings demonstrate the complexities of human nature and the importance of fostering a close relationship with yourself. Build it. Understand it. Take time to know yourself. Make sure to love your self.
