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The Intimacy of Solitude

By Ben Mester

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Published: 13Aug2009
Word count: 449
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Being a romantic, I love thinking about idealistic terms. What is intimacy, and what is solitude, and why in the world would I pair them together in a short blog post? The two words intrigue me, because even though they seem like opposite, they are in fact very similar. For define the two terms in this way: Intimacy — an intense closeness with another. Solitude — an intense closeness with oneself.

During my more formative years, I was privileged enough to have enjoyed long periods of solitude and reflection. I learned much about myself and life, excelling in the ancient Greek maxim that simply states "Know Thyself." I came to realize something surprising. The more time I spent alone, pondering life and what kind of man I would become, the more I seemed to grow in genuine relationships and intimacy (platonic) with the people close to me. I realized that the more intimate I am with myself — the more I know my passions, my purpose, the more I grow in character — the more intimate I will be able to be with others around me.

Genuine intimacy, even in a platonic, friendly sense, takes both confidence and humility. Interestingly enough, those were the two things I grew most in from my times spent alone with myself and the Lord. The more I came to understand myself, the more confident I became; and the more I came to understand life, the more I wanted to grow in humility, realizing full well that I am no better than other men who have come before me, and that I will be alive for only a short while and then be gone.

Being a romantic, I have always longed to have deep intimacy with the one whom I'll one day spend the rest of my life with. But what I didn't realize until just recently was that my ability to be intimate with someone, will most likely be a direct result of how intimate I have been with myself. It's an odd, ironic truth, but I hope it's as interesting to you to read as it was for me to discover.

But this is become a scarier and scarier truth. With our current Age of Communication, of texting and Facebook and everything else, solitude is becoming a very lost art. It is not only shunned, it's becoming despised as outdated and dead. People don't seek solitude much anymore. I fear that an entire generation will live so completely connected to one another, that only a few among the many will genuinely break free to learn what things solitude has to offer. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

For more romantic notions and thoughts about solitude and intimacy, check out my blog. Hope you enjoyed this article!

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