Effects of Long Periods of Solitude

I don't really notice them. I think my record is about 11-12 days without speaking to anyone or leaving the house and it was great. I got a lot of work done.

I remember being in third or fourth grade and reading a story about solitary confinement and genuinely not being able to understand how anyone could consider that a punishment. If the food was decent and I had internet, I would happily sit in solitary indefinitely.

wickerwoman wrote:I don't really notice them. I think my record is about 11-12 days without speaking to anyone or leaving the house and it was great. I got a lot of work done.

I remember being in third or fourth grade and reading a story about solitary confinement and genuinely not being able to understand how anyone could consider that a punishment. If the food was decent and I had internet, I would happily sit in solitary indefinitely.

The thing is, if you had internet, you wouldn't truly be alone. You would be able to communicate with people and fulfill your need to socialize. Even if you did not make any comments and simply watched the internet, you wouldn't truly be isolated.

That's not to say it's the same as socializing with people face to face, but it's still far more than enough to maintain an inverted lifestyle with some level of comfort.

I believe that I could, for instance, survive exclusively on the internet for all of my social needs for my entire life if it were needed. I do not know if I'd prefer that, but it's definitely survivable, sort of like subsisting on the most basic needs for food, water, and/or sleep.

I wanted to say that I do I agree with your sentiment, being completely and utterly alone in a house without any outside contact whatsoever for a couple weeks would be fantastic, especially if the internet was available to supplement any social needs. It could even be longer, if not regular. I'd call it a vacation!

IntellectualCat wrote:

JPKAS wrote:yeah Koopa, even if you were isolated- you'd never be able to make a view point of the universe independent of external stimuli.

We discussed this is my aesthetics class- Even if someone was completely put into a vacuum, the vacuum itself would help determine their entire being.

People are shaped too much by genetics and external input from people to ever truly be free of it....Half the time I think who we are is entirely out of our control in all reality ;p.

This is why I don't believe in free will. It's not like I have ever felt like I had free will anyway.

I agree entirely. More deeply than has been commented on yet in this topic. I could elaborate, but I don't know if this is the place for philosophical thinking nor exaggerated imagination.

I will say, though, unless we know our destiny, we will still have the illusion of control, and if we did know our destiny (theoretically) we would be able to change it; yet by knowing we would have simply been forced down a different path than we originally imagined and still be completely out of control. Yeah... I'll stop here. Sorry.

No effect. I feel it consolidates me.

It's not uncommon for me to go several days without any human contact whatsoever. On the one hand, it can be every bit as blissfully sublime as any socially-inundated schizoid might imagine, and indeed I find it beneficial (with regards to introspection, etc) to immerse myself in solitude, as it were. The flip side of this is that it creates a dangerous negative feedback loop, wherein I withdraw further and further in the absence of external stimulation, until I reach a truly debilitating level of anhedonic detachment.

Does anyone else experience a similarly frustrating juxtaposition between, for lack of better terminology, liberating and stifling solitude in the sense described above?

IntellectualCat wrote:

muaddib wrote:Yeah, it does things to ya. My quirks look more schizotypal than schizoid, and I've never been completely isolated (interacted some with family), but I think smirks summed it up pretty well. You just feel really rusty and distant around most people (didn't seem to have any problems with people I really liked though).

Now, it could have been because I managed to keep some sense of direction, and went outside into nature a lot, but my isolated period did have an upside. It really stripped away a lot of the ideas and concerns society had tried training into me. Maybe it's a mixed bag because it makes it even harder to relate to most people, but the prize is that my soul feels much freer.

I think that a sense of direction is needed to enjoy solitude. One time when I was isolated for a big chunk of the day, I didn't really enjoy it because what I was doing felt aimless. While I had depression at the time, I don't think the isolation did that because I already was losing interest in things I used to enjoy.

Being in nature also helps. When I go out in nature alone, I feel connected to my surroundings, and sometimes it even feels spiritual. It is much better than feeling like you are at risk of being influenced subconsciously by other people who are closed-minded and want other people to believe the same things they believe.

Recently, I spent quite a bit of alone time, and I felt like the ideas and concerns people were training into me were stripped away. I guess I didn't really notice that ideas were being pushed on me when I was around people since I still had my unusual ideas, but I think certain people around me were expressing negative beliefs about the world that exacerbated my depression.

I have little to no attachment to nature . I don't seem to enjoy the beauty of it in quite the same way other people do. I will say I do have a soft spot for trees and sky though. Everything else is sorta meh. I just think that imagination is far more interesting than what nature has to offer.

Koopa wrote:

wickerwoman wrote:I don't really notice them. I think my record is about 11-12 days without speaking to anyone or leaving the house and it was great. I got a lot of work done.

I remember being in third or fourth grade and reading a story about solitary confinement and genuinely not being able to understand how anyone could consider that a punishment. If the food was decent and I had internet, I would happily sit in solitary indefinitely.

The thing is, if you had internet, you wouldn't truly be alone. You would be able to communicate with people and fulfill your need to socialize. Even if you did not make any comments and simply watched the internet, you wouldn't truly be isolated.

That's not to say it's the same as socializing with people face to face, but it's still far more than enough to maintain an inverted lifestyle with some level of comfort.

I believe that I could, for instance, survive exclusively on the internet for all of my social needs for my entire life if it were needed. I do not know if I'd prefer that, but it's definitely survivable, sort of like subsisting on the most basic needs for food, water, and/or sleep.

I wanted to say that I do I agree with your sentiment, being completely and utterly alone in a house without any outside contact whatsoever for a couple weeks would be fantastic, especially if the internet was available to supplement any social needs. It could even be longer, if not regular. I'd call it a vacation!

IntellectualCat wrote:

JPKAS wrote:yeah Koopa, even if you were isolated- you'd never be able to make a view point of the universe independent of external stimuli.

We discussed this is my aesthetics class- Even if someone was completely put into a vacuum, the vacuum itself would help determine their entire being.

People are shaped too much by genetics and external input from people to ever truly be free of it....Half the time I think who we are is entirely out of our control in all reality ;p.

This is why I don't believe in free will. It's not like I have ever felt like I had free will anyway.

I agree entirely. More deeply than has been commented on yet in this topic. I could elaborate, but I don't know if this is the place for philosophical thinking nor exaggerated imagination.

I will say, though, unless we know our destiny, we will still have the illusion of control, and if we did know our destiny (theoretically) we would be able to change it; yet by knowing we would have simply been forced down a different path than we originally imagined and still be completely out of control. Yeah... I'll stop here. Sorry.

You could go on. I like this sort of talk. It's interesting to me. I really do think that the closest thing to free will is choosing to do what we will with the cards we were dealt. Sure it's certainly limited,but it's not entirely forced per say. I guess. Yes even the act of knowing your destiny ends up entirely effecting your choice- meaning was it really a free choice in all honesty?

Skad3 wrote:It's not uncommon for me to go several days without any human contact whatsoever. On the one hand, it can be every bit as blissfully sublime as any socially-inundated schizoid might imagine, and indeed I find it beneficial (with regards to introspection, etc) to immerse myself in solitude, as it were. The flip side of this is that it creates a dangerous negative feedback loop, wherein I withdraw further and further in the absence of external stimulation, until I reach a truly debilitating level of anhedonic detachment.

Does anyone else experience a similarly frustrating juxtaposition between, for lack of better terminology, liberating and stifling solitude in the sense described above?

Honestly I always feel withdrawn even when I interact so I can't quite say in regards to this. Usually I only become overtly avoiding people if I'm depressed, and in those rarer episodes I'm pretty much gone into a different state anyway- so I can't say it's really the 'stifling isolation' doing it. I do get quite nutty though during those periods. Quite trapped feeling and desperate for no apparent reason.

I feel like in prolonged socialization it's as if my brain or true self goes on vacation and it's a mind-numbing fake emotional reaction that is happening , while inside is overwhelmingly numb. It's like putting a postponement on myself and going on autopilot. So...kind of the opposite of what you are describing. I do well with limited interactions on a predesignated day. I have this one friend I hang out with on saturdays- most of that saturday. A lot of this is auto pilot as well, and the only times I really enjoy it is when we are just sitting have a conversation and not going out to see his friends or whatever else. This may mean out of a whole 8 hour day I only enjoy 2 hours out of it possibly. i can also do about a week to a month of prolonged interaction depending on who it is ,before I start going into 'numb' state.

I actually feel like it can be just as bad/ worse for me to have too much contact ..It has to be within a certain pattern or it becomes taxing.

24 hours? Week?

In the past, I was alone at home for several years. About 8 years. I didn't go anywhere, I didn't talk to anyone.