I can’t stand being with myself: on the essential comfort of solitude
Who are you when nobody's watching?
I’ve always known the world to be divided into 2, in a lot of cases but most prominently is the case of being social or antisocial; you might also recognize this as “introvert” and “extrovert”, being a people’s person or otherwise.
Another situation you might recognize is antagonizing those who fight comfort in solitude, viewing their preference to recharge alone as something to eventually recover from.
But as I have come to learn in the recent years, the world is better in balance, and the world is never that black and white. Just as it is essential to learn how to effectively communicate and socialize, it is also essential to get comfortable being with yourself.
Across my modest few years on earth, I went from being completely antisocial in my tween and early teen years to being a social butterfly in my young adult years; it was a 180 prompted by shift in life stages and circumstance, but as earlier mentioned it was an either or for me, and I went from spending most of my time alone to spending all of my time with other people, shedding the skin that craved solitude. I recognized with social saturation that too much of anything is never good, and that included the praised socialization with others. Through constant socialization, including for someone who is still hyper social, I felt like I was getting sucked into this state of only recognizing myself as a person to others; as a friend to x , as a plus one to y, and so on. That is something I also felt when I was less social earlier in my life, but that’s a story for another day, this is mainly about the general disacknowledgement of a social spectrum and adopting a social binary.
Back to my original point, lacking the solitude, even if it was for a few minutes in the morning, made me feel major discomfort with every instance of it. I had to be on a call with someone, texting someone, out with someone, and so on. I still prefer being with others, but learning to get more comfortable with being alone and dedicating active time to it contributed to getting to know myself more. This act manifests itself differently in different people across different times in one’s life; acknowledging sociability as a spectrum rather than a binary creates an equilibrium between reflection and engagement as well as allowing for, when done explicitly and actively, getting to know yourself away from the noise. I love my friends, I love my family, but making the effort to get to know myself has made me a better person to them and, primarily, myself.
How I personally do it is have a day in the week where I do something myself, whether that means stay in and do an activity I like, my artwork also gives me time with myself so that’s something I’ve been doing more of especially with a busy schedule, take myself out to have coffee or do a class. During the day, I found performing my prayers to be the minimum solitude I need; the urgency to do them on time, in a specific way, and in a comfortable spot all pour into the sacredness of not only the act itself but also the state it puts me in; a consistent state of comfort.
As for what didn’t work out, restaurant solo dates haven’t worked out so well for me, and I get either very sleepy or very agitated going to movies alone so that hasn’t been a success either, but it’s a learning process and I acknowledge my time alone will take different forms depending on where I am in life and what I need, and that is also something I learn from my time with myself.
Over time I have grown resilient and self aware through that dedicated time, it did start out accidentally through journaling and that reflected well on how I am to others, how it manifests in my art, and how I am to myself.
But how did solitude manifest itself in art, and what did artists say about the time they spent alone?
“Art starts alone – and convinces society later.” - Douglas Davis, American visual artist.
Often times, artists in media are portrayed to create alone. I bet you can picture it: the artist leaning on an easel, dipping into their paint of choice (usually, oil paints) with them being the only ones in presence (with the exception of the occasional muse or reference model). This brings to mind stills of the movie the Danish Girl (2015), where in the earlier scenes of the film Alicia Vikander’s character, who is depicting the real-life artist equivalent, was seen painting and sketching in her studio alone or in the presence of Eddie Redmayne as the muse or another model.
This stereotype is not too far from the truth. The Danish illustrator Gerda Wegener, played by Alicia Vikander, is a general example but one artist that prominently thrived in her solitude was Frida Kahlo.
“I’ll paint myself, because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best” - Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter
Frida Kahlo’s love for painting began during her convalescence from a bus accident in 1925. Across many tragedies in her life, she was often left alone. From that loneliness grew solitude that manifested itself in her art, as she found painting to be a way for her to introspect and contemplated questions on identity and existence.
She later stated that the isolating recovery period made her desire to begin again, painting things just as she saw them with her own eyes and nothing more. Kahlo was inspired through that period to paint self-portraits, described as small yet intense self-portraits that captured her fixed gaze and stern appearance, uncharacteristic of female subjects during that time. Of her 143 surviving paintings, 55 are self-portraits.
In the solitude artists experience, it is no wonder that their studios become a work-in-progress alongside their art, and that was the case for Frida as well. La Casa Azul, which is the vibrant blue building in Mexico City where Kahlo was born, where she grew up, where she returned to cultivate her art career that was flourishing as her marriage to Diego Rivera was withering, and where she died after a painful life that she lead.
The interiors were adorned by Frida’s character; everything from ancient Aztec artifacts to native plants and Beaux Arts objets found at flea markets to works by both Diego and Frida. One would describe her space as a microcosm of her existence. Kahlo wished for this space to eventually be left as a museum, and the museum was inaugurated [posthumously] in 1958.
In creating a space that would be a home for her, it cultivated an ambience where Frida’s solitude was a state of comfort, safety, and introspection. That home embraced many visitors that shared that sentiment, both as a house and a museum.
The person we know the least is often ourselves, and in a world that moves very fast I often found myself fatigued with all the decisions, choices, restrictions, and my own human condition. I found that without getting to know ourselves, we can easily get lost in a world we we’re all operating under the assumption that there is one right way to do life, when the thing that makes life what it is is the tumultuous journey of becoming who we are, that starts with the time we spend alone.
Signed,
Sarah
P.S. : this wouldn’t be fair without sharing a glimpse of my own “studio”. Messy, techy, and full of Easter eggs.
Enjoyed every word! Thanks for a wonderful read