
Being Alone - wallflower
https://www.ankit.fyi/being-alone
======
ankitshah
Hi there! Ankit here, the writer of Being Alone. Thanks so much for sharing
this on HN. Appreciate the kind comments and thoughtful reflections here.

Honestly, I didn't anticipate that my writing would find its way to HN—and
certainly not the front page—so this is really a pleasant surprise. (By the
way, if OP is seeing this, I'd love to know how you found the essay + also
thank you directly for thinking to post it here.)

If I can answer any questions about the essay, loneliness and connection more
broadly, the practice of being alone, the website, Tea With Strangers (or
anything else, really, I'm here for it :).

I'm also reachable at by email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) and
twitter.com/ankitshah. More about me and my background here:
[https://ankit.fyi/about](https://ankit.fyi/about)

~~~
zestyping
I really enjoyed reading this article. Many of the ideas in it were already
familiar to me, but the act of reading it was like a meditation, and putting
those ideas all together in that beautiful form created a different frame of
mind for me. Thank you.

When I got to the very bottom, I read the postscript, which led me to your
About page. I was shocked to learn that you work at Facebook.

How is this possible, I wondered. Facebook is continually pouring enormous
resources into getting us all to keep scrolling, to generate "that hollow
feeling" you refer to, billions of times every day. It's a strong contender
for the most effective destroyer, at planetary scale, of the consciousness and
ability to connect with ourselves to which Being Alone is an ode.

What a strange mystery this is!

~~~
meagher
Wow. I came here to write the exact same thing after following the same path.

You call it a “strange mystery,” I call it cognitive dissonance.

~~~
neilparikh
It's possible the author is experiencing cognitive dissonance, but you should
consider that maybe they've thought about the issue for a while, and come to
conclusion that working at Facebook really is the best to achieve the goals
they care about. They've worked on Tea With Strangers for 6 years, so I think
it's very unlikely they haven't thought about this consciously, and just
"deluding themselves", as another commentator suggests.

Now, I'm guessing that it's an obvious conclusion to you that working at
Facebook goes against the goals the author suggests, and hence you dismissed
it as cognitive dissonance fairly quickly. So then question becomes, why is
obvious to you while not to the author? My suggestion is the author is
starting from a different set of axioms than you are, which leads to a
different conclusion.

I was able to come up with multiple axiom sets[0] that allow coming to the
conclusion that working at Facebook is a positive way to achieve the author's
goal, within about 5 minutes of thinking, so I think your conclusion is far
from obvious.

[0] - I don't necessarily agree with most (or any) of these. My point is more
that these sets do exist.

~~~
ankitshah
Thanks for jumping in here Neil (and for doing your homework on my background
:)

I wrote a little bit more about this in these comments:

\-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23597561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23597561)

\-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23601253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23601253)

------
all2
I've been spending a lot of time alone lately. Partially because of COVID, and
partially because I have "suddenly" become single.

Sitting alone when emotions are running is so hard. I've spent a large portion
of my life trying not to get trapped in the background noise of TV or
headphones or social media. And now all I want is to run into those things.

I understand avoiding those emotions is unhealthy. But being alone can hurt. A
lot.

~~~
the_cramer
Same situation for me. I am single for a long time but recently many friends
also break up contact more or less. They are founding families, building
houses. I cannot really blame them.

I am alone at home very often, most of the times it is okay, i don't really
need someone in these times for talking and such. I'm not the big talker
anyways. But there are some moments, especially in the evening, where the
loneliness is just crushing. I always try to find a logical reason for this.
In these moments i do not really feel the need for talking or meeting someone.
It's a kind of fear to miss something because of the lack of friends. I'm for
sure it's highly irrational and to this day I didn't find a definitve answer.

Another observation i made is that these feelings are stronger when i'm hungry
or thirsty. Sometimes, if i feel lonely i eat (i'm a twig, no worries). It
seems to produce forgetti stuff in the body and the worries often go away.

Browsing social media and stuff has the opposite effect. It raises the
question "Why are the others having fun and friends and stuff?" Wouldn't
recommend that (subjective)

I'm sure there is a chemical explanation for all this, or an evolutionary, but
for all ppl that feel like this: get your pizza!

Of course this is all referring to the "negative" type of loneliness. There is
another type which we may crave: "I want to go on top of that lonely mountain
with nobody around me", "Let's go into the forest where no humans are going
onto my nerves". This selective loneliness is a good one and should be looked
for from time to time.

~~~
jakub_g
Can relate to most of things above.

BTW: re: food, it's been well-studied that what the balance of gut bacteria
heavily influences one's mood:

[https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/gut-feelings-how-food-
af...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/gut-feelings-how-food-affects-your-
mood-2018120715548)

------
sulfur
Maybe I make it myself too easy with that, but often when I read about
loneliness and how to deal with it, it comes from people who have friends and
a relationship. So it seems they are just missing that tiny little bit til
perfection. Maybe my scale is a different one, but for me loneliness is when
you don’t have all these social “basics“ to start with. It’s not about
struggling to deepen existing connections, it’s having none at all.

~~~
clarry
Yep, and all the solutions they can offer is "go to a meetup with like-minded
people ROFL"... I guess it is _that simple_ for them.

------
Animats
I'm fine with being alone. Having to be alone for a year is kind of wearing,
but not devastating. Beats dying.

I really do miss land-line voice quality, though. Too many of my friends are
into hands-free phoning, and hands-free plus cellular plus VOIP is only
marginally understandable.

Complete silence apparently bothers some people, but I've always found it
restful.

~~~
rimliu

      > Complete silence apparently bothers some people
    

I think this is related to the point the author makes: _You need to find
connection with yourself._

I think that being in the silence, alone is where that connection is being
made. And some people are so not used to it, that this scares them. I cannot
otherwise explain people's desire to be constantly surrounded by some noise,
be it TV, radio, music in their headphones, whatever. How about just sitting
ten minutes in silence? Or even better, half an hour in the nature, without
boomboxes and headphones?

My other idea, which I cannot prove, that the state of the mental health in US
is correlated to the point above. When introverts are looked upon as some sick
weirdos, when there is a culture of constant superficial socializing, when
deep discussions are replaced by knee-jerk reactions, profile picture frames,
and putting on labels on things, and when you are still affraid to know
yourself—surely this should come out sideways somehow. I single out US because
I know no other country with so much push for the extrovert behaviour.

I've spend _a lot_ of time being alone while growing up and in my university
days. It came at a cost, and I wish I had socialized a bit more back then, but
overall I consider it to be enormous net positive thing.

~~~
ankitshah
Beautifully put.

I wrote a little about this on my website
[here]([http://ankit.fyi/about](http://ankit.fyi/about)). You might enjoy this
passage in particular related to your idea that you cannot prove:

> I think misunderstanding as an epidemic is rooted in how we’ve learned to
> consume information and how we haven’t learned how to digest it. This is one
> of the reasons I’m excited about the Internet, social media culture, and how
> we choose to express ourselves and connect with one another.

> I also think the best way to consume and digest information is through real
> human interaction. Even better if it’s with a non-judgmental lens of
> curiosity in understanding why people are the way they are, but it’s still
> pretty great when it’s just shooting shit about a common interest or sharing
> an experience.

> I have a dream that one day, Internet interactions will fuel more human
> interactions. That our default behavior will be to use this amazing access
> to information that we have to learn more, connect dots in constructive
> ways, understand others more deeply, and maybe even to grow more open minded
> to who each of us can become.

> Right now, though, the Internet feels like a place where people are throwing
> food at each other and taking shits on the sidewalk. I think we can do
> better.

------
totetsu
This process of observant conversation with others seems good for noticing the
context and shape of yourself as a social human. I wonder if this kind of
purposeful activity can be applied to spending time outdoors, with non-human
things, to gain self awareness of what a human is. My musician friends tell me
that if you think classical music is relaxing, you're not paying enough
attention. Perhaps the same can be said about going for a walk.

~~~
ankitshah
I think you're onto something here ;)

An earlier draft of this essay had a whole section about communing with nature
and what it meant to go for a quiet walk by yourself.

At its core, this whole essay is an ode to paying attention to yourself, and
part of paying attention to yourself is paying attention to the environment
that you are a part of—the space around you, the sounds you hear, the stimuli
affecting your thoughts, etc. etc.

You might enjoy this little idea I've started called the Silent Hike Society.
It's exactly what it sounds like, but here's an explainer:
[https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/180405719200378...](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18040571920037802/)

You may also resonate with this meditation on walking that I made a while
back:
[https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/178469900116070...](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17846990011607079/)

~~~
totetsu
This is a great idea.

------
papeda
This might be described as "a blog post about mindfulness". That description
would lead me to expect something trite and bad, but fortunately I enjoyed
reading it. It reminds me of the following snippet from _Within A Budding
Grove_ :

> And yet one did not find in Bergotte’s speech a certain luminosity which in
> his books, as in those of some other writers, often modified in the written
> sentence the appearance of its words. This was doubtless because the light
> issues from so profound a depth that its rays do not penetrate to our spoken
> words in the hours in which, thrown open to others by the act of
> conversation, we are to a certain extent closed to ourselves.

(Also, I'm getting some SSL error from the "Tea With Strangers" website.)

~~~
ankitshah
:) Happy to know that this exceeded your expectations.

The passage you shared is beautiful, but it's not quite registering how the
essay evoked it for you. Can you say more?

Btw - thanks for the flag on the SSL error. Fixed the URL and it should be
properly pointing to
[http://www.teawithstrangers.com](http://www.teawithstrangers.com) now

~~~
papeda
> The passage you shared is beautiful, but it's not quite registering how the
> essay evoked it for you. Can you say more?

One thing I take away from the excerpt is that the person we present and feel
ourselves as during interactions with others is not exactly the same as the
person we are alone. There isn't necessarily an element of deceit to this.
Instead, we should pay attention to both selves -- and to me much of your
essay is about paying attention to the person we are when we're alone, and
being aware of differences between the two selves, without _necessarily_
needing to reconcile them.

~~~
all2
We are like a beam of light which changes depending on the lens through which
we project ourselves. The final form changes based on the situation (lens).

I think I would say we project different aspects of ourselves into lower
dimensions (thoughts and words) depending on the transformation function
(context into which we are projecting ourselves).

You get a twofer of analogies today!

~~~
Dragonai
> I think I would say we project different aspects of ourselves into lower
> dimensions (thoughts and words) depending on the transformation function
> (context into which we are projecting ourselves).

Such a great way to articulate this. This is why I love HN.

------
jackfrodo
This was an incredibly positive and deeply important read. This is something
that I've dealt with all my life, but of course have felt more acutely these
past few months.

Thank you for writing this; I won't soon forget it.

~~~
ankitshah
Means the world to read this Jack. Thanks so much for the kind comment. I'd
love to know what parts of the essay resonate with you, what stuck, etc.

Please feel free to reach out to me on email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) or
twitter.com/ankitshah

------
Pamar
Thanks for posting this - I wrote about solitude/loneliness in the past (and
published the essay here, too) - I will add this to my page ([http://pa-
mar.net/Lifestyle/Solitude.html](http://pa-mar.net/Lifestyle/Solitude.html))
and also try to contact the author of the article.

~~~
ankitshah
Wow, this is a really thoughtfully written page. Thanks for sharing it Pamar.
I'll want to take some time to really digest your writing and synthesis of
others' perspectives on the topics.

~~~
Pamar
Thank you! The most important resource is the book itself:
[https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo26...](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo26297655.html)
\- I only ruminated on it and provided some extra links at the end.

------
farnsworth
I'm really interested in the "Tea With Strangers" idea and looking forward to
finding one, when lockdown is over, in the distant future.

Semi-related, lately I've been looking for resources on how to have better and
deeper conversations. I wonder whether anyone has any books that they've found
helpful. I come from a very sort of buttoned-down sort of people who have
trouble moving beyond surface-level small talk, and I've been trying to find
ways to get people (and myself) to be comfortable opening up in conversation.

------
el_dev_hell
You're a great writer. That was long but super engaging.

What blog platform are you using? The visual breaks are nice.

~~~
ankitshah
Really kind of you. Thanks for saying so.

Echoing bobbiechen — it's Squarespace, and this essay was designed as a page,
not a blog post, which provided increased flexibility in the design, etc..
It's super robust if you break out of the standard templates.

------
harpratap
To me it seems like many are just rediscovering Dharmic religions but in a
modern context.

~~~
ankitshah
You're right! So much of this essay can find a mirror in Vedic, Jain, Buddhist
and Taoist philosophies (and numerous other schools of thoughts and
philosophies). I don't think my ideas here are original.

My hope was that this essay would find resonance amongst those who might have
difficulty connecting with these ideas in more religious, spiritual, or
philosophical contexts. It was one of my goals while writing this to make it
as accessible and plainspeak as possible.

------
fierarul
How to be alone
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs)

~~~
Lapland
Thanks for sharing!

------
ontouchstart
Since this is a tech forum, perhaps we can model "being alone" as an
introspective state machine that has limited I/O.

It is also interesting to see how apps want to be alone. A social network app
like Facebook is useless when off-grid. But an immersive app like kindle can
offer you hours of solitude.

------
thevagrant
Great article. In isolation, I learn a lot more about myself and develop an
understanding. It becomes easier to see what I really need... and it is not
much. Unfortunately there is always the pressure to go back to work, to fulfil
obligations and participate in debt pressure of society.

------
WhoIsSatoshi
the topic is interesting but I found the article too lengthy. I do like the
tea with stranger setup and get to know thyself concepts... but I feel the
article could have had twice the impact if it had been half the length.

~~~
ankitshah
I'm sure you'll find many articles and essays on solitude, connection and self
knowledge that are efficient enough for your taste.

I don't know that reading 6000 words on the subject suits everyone :)

------
cryptozeus
Great write up , I was hoping for more information on how to connect with
yourself. Btw your site tea with strangers seems to be down at the moment.

~~~
ankitshah
My hope with the essay was primarily to provide a language, articulation and
case to support the exploration of a relationship with self, but I definitely
think it could use more substance in the area of "how to."

Would love to know more of what you think though!

What else do you think would be helpful that's missing from this? I've been
thinking about writing something to supplement the essay with further
resources, frameworks, and more tactical support for people who want to dig
deeper into the essay.

(Also thx for the heads up about the link! The site is up, but the link was
bad. Fixed it. Should be properly pointing to
[http://www.teawithstrangers.com](http://www.teawithstrangers.com) now)

~~~
cryptozeus
I think I may be looking for you or other articles to hand me the easy way out
to help with connect myself. It may be that I need to spend more time with
myself in solitude and figure it out.

------
privethedge
I'm alone and don't feel bad at all. Actually, I prefer to be alone. There are
so many interesting things to do, so many interesting books to read, etc, I
don't understand how someone can be bored. It's really strange to me that so
many people suffer from being alone and feel lonely.

~~~
cutemonster
I'm curious about how you spend the working day? (Office or remote? Alone the
whole day?)

------
livealife
While this is all sweet and positive stuff, my friends mostly are jerks who
"Can't talk. WhatsApp only."

------
saargrin
haha stop being alone by investing in relationship with your friends and
having conversations with your friends !

wow thats brilliant insight

------
starpilot
If happiness comes from within, we should not care about any forms of
injustice. Who cares if your people are being murdered or put in concentration
camps, inside you can still be happy.

~~~
inakarmacoma
All true at the same? Not mutually exclusive.

------
akater
For a non-technical text about a basic, broadly-appealing topic, this has
disappointingly high level of mentions of something called “FaceTime”.

I have not yet read it all but I already have doubts it's worth reading
further after second mention if author just expects all readers to be on
Facebook or be familiar with a particular program to connect to others, or
with an experience of usage thereof.

~~~
jpxw
FaceTime is not a complicated concept. It’s a phone call but with video. I’m
sure you already know this, even if you’re pretending not to (to look “cool” I
guess). If the author explained every single word used, he’d be writing a
dictionary and not an article.

~~~
akater
There may be different aspects to programs like this. They may provide calls,
they may provide some other features that are significant to understand their
influence on users but non-obvious to non-users.

I never encountered FaceTime and I have avoided Facebook since I firnt saw it.
Also, curiously, I've recently observed a group of like-minded people divided,
in a fairly confrontational manner, unable to listen to each other, with one
side being, according to my observanions, overrepresented on Facebook,
compared to another, and the other overrepresented on Twitter.

This can be attributed to “echo chamber” phenomenon, or to platform preference
by leaders of opinions. But my null hypothesis now is, Facebook actually
changes its users to being worse communicators, unlike Twitter, and it
contributes to users' feelings of isolation, significantly. I'm sure details
of means of communication matter.

~~~
Talanes
FaceTime is not a Facebook product. It's also bad form to accuse others of
being poor communicators while ignoring all obvious social cues to continue on
with a preformed rant against an unrelated entity to the topic at hand.

