LONELINESS VERSUS SOLITUDE

 

 

                                LONELINESS VERSUS SOLITUDE

            Loneliness is unwanted. It is an unhappy situation because you have no friends and people to talk to. Solitude is also the state of being alone, but it is a pleasant one and wished for. It does not make you sad. On the contrary, it gives you relief from an over-busy schedule and the presence of madding crowds.

If you are alone at a place which is quiet and un-inhabitated and has natural beauty like that of a garden or a mountain, you are blissful .

English clergy Lawrence Sterne (1713-68) says in solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon itself; in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports – the feigned compassions of one, the flattery of a second, the civilities of a third, the friendship of a fourth; they all deceive, and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection and books.

According to the American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82): It is easy, in the world, to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy, in solitude, to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowds, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Finally, loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self. Moreover, solitude shows us what we should be; society shows us what we are.

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G.R.Kanwal

9^th June 2024