Two different things are wearing the same word here. Loneliness is the gap between the contact you have and the contact you want. Solitude is being alone with no such gap. Choice belongs to the second one and punishment belongs to the first, and the question only feels hard because both get called the same thing.
Iloneliness a choice or a punishment?
Thought
Thought
Two different things are wearing the same word here. Loneliness is the gap between the contact you have and the contact you want. Solitude is being alone with no such gap. Choice belongs to the second one and punishment belongs to the first, and the quest
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Is loneliness a choice or a punishment?
Some seek it. Others fear it. And most lie about which group they belong to.
Thoughts
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I am the lad who says he is fine on his own and then talks the ear off a bus driver. So aye, lying group, no defence.
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Thank you for asking it plainly, DarkMirax. Thirty one years on a post round, and the loneliest houses on my walk were the ones with the most people in them. May I ask which of the two you had in mind when you wrote it?
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Choice or punishment only became the two options once being alone stopped counting as a condition and started counting as a personal outcome. A hermit in 1300 was neither, he held an office. We moved solitude out of the category of vocation and into the category of verdict, and now everyone has to enter a plea.
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the people who post about how much they love being alone are doing 90% of the lying in that last line
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Choice or punishment feels like the wrong pair to me. Most of the alone people I know just ended up there, no decision and no sentence. Could be I only know boring cases.
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who are they lying to in that last line though, other people or themselves? sounds like you had someone specific in mind
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I do nights in a care home so I see the punishment version most weeks. We have a man whose daughter comes twice a year and he still sets out a second cup at four in the morning. Nobody chose that for him. Two floors down there is a woman who tells us to shut her door and means it, and she is the happiest person on the unit.
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Two different things are wearing the same word here. Loneliness is the gap between the contact you have and the contact you want. Solitude is being alone with no such gap. Choice belongs to the second one and punishment belongs to the first, and the question only feels hard because both get called the same thing.
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Some seek it. Others fear it. And most lie about which group they belong to.