I haven't spent 5 months in Antarctic solitude like Byrd, but I did live on a bicycle for a year while circling North America. I'd go multiple days without seeing anyone else, sometimes in the desert and sometimes in the forest. It changed my life, in ways that's hard to communicate to people who haven't spent time in actual solitude.
These days I live in a fairly remote part of Alaska, but we have good cell coverage here now. It's different being in wilderness while still having the possibility of being connected. I feel different when I get into a valley where there's no coverage. I'm tempted to get a satellite device for emergencies, but part of me relishes the impossibility of contact with the outside world for a time. That's a good issue to wrestle with.
If you haven't experienced true solitude yet, go find some. It's pretty grounding.
A few years ago, I did a solo hike around midnight to a spot in Bryce Canyon hoping to get a glimpse of the night skies. I had my camera situated on an outcropping taking pictures at set intervals while i was laying down staring at the night sky and the canyon below. I felt a strange and comforting sensation... Goosebumps and everything. I was in this vast wilderness in the middle of the night and yet i felt "cozy" like i'm in a small place. Like this is it, I'm home. I was miles away from civilization but felt i was still a part of something much bigger at that particular moment. I imagined that's what a lot of old explorers must have felt when being out on their journeys. I live in Colorado and play in the mountains quite a bit and while I don't want to sound like a crazy hippy but that experience and a few others like it have really showed me that people (maybe not all but some) are tethered to nature on some subconscious level. It's mysterious and almost magical. But these are the experiences i cherish when I'm out alone in the wilderness.
Another hypothesis might be that people know on some subconscious level that the real threat in the world is other people. I don't mean threat in the sense that you'll be killed but in society there is constantly a power struggle, as a man you try to climb the dominance hierarchy or if you don't try to climb it you feel weak because you know deep down that you're not top dog and there's a lot of consequences to that status etc.
Where as if you go somewhere where you're certain there's no other people around then you're free of all that, free to express yourself without worrying even a little about other people judging your every little movement, every behaviour.
Thanks for sharing...you've also reminded me that's it's been a while since I've read Ed Abbey's Desert Solitaire [1]. I think I may have to pull it off the shelf this weekend and dive in for another read.
+1 for this book. Abbey argued strongly and persuasively for the wilderness and raged against it disappearing, not just from existence with paved roads and air conditioned cabins but from our imaginations.
I wish I was back home with my granddad and just farming sometimes. He is an awesome man but I cannot buy land in India anymore.
Edit: He used to manage an "Ashram" which was basically just a private little river facing house in a village. He maintained the bushes/trees/plants and all that jazz and just chilled. It was good. It was simple.
I live alone in the suburbs, and I regularly don't see people for days after I stock up on food and hole up by myself in my apartment.
I know what you mean about solitude in the outdoors, though. I'm not sure if the difference for me is so much about the inability for potential contact with others, but more of a feeling of the appreciation and awe of nature, and the feeling of insignificance and almost intrusion in an environment that is not tailor-made for supporting human life (as civilization is), as well as being alone with one's thoughts instead of reading other people's thoughts in books or online or distracting oneself with other media. There's a lot more time for introspection and reflection when one is alone and away from humanity and its cultural products.
These days I live in a fairly remote part of Alaska, but we have good cell coverage here now. It's different being in wilderness while still having the possibility of being connected. I feel different when I get into a valley where there's no coverage. I'm tempted to get a satellite device for emergencies, but part of me relishes the impossibility of contact with the outside world for a time. That's a good issue to wrestle with.
If you haven't experienced true solitude yet, go find some. It's pretty grounding.