8 Balls & 8 Reelers #8: Touch Grass
On Spending Time Alone
Seriously. Go outside.
Having reeled myself in from last week’s monstrosity word vomit of a manifesto from Fourth of July depression, let me now align myself by examining a lovely, warm topic. Loneliness.
Oh god, he’s still depressed and twisted. Yeah maybe, but just here me out for a moment. Spending time with yourself is hard. It may happen every day and at the same time feel impossible to survive. It hurts. It drains our souls.
But there is a broad spectrum on what is and isn’t loneliness.
Permission To Spend Time Alone
As an intro, I’d like to defer to my close and personal friend, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky on the matter of community and loneliness.
“I think I’d like to say only that they should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to be spend time with oneself.”
-Andrei Tarkovsky, quote from the documentary ‘A Poet in the Cinema’
While I have some quarrels with Tarkovsky’s view on people coming together, I think his insight on the act of being alone holds great virtue. There is a distinct differenct between feeling alone versus actually being alone.
What does this mean? Let me draw on my own experience.
The Loneliness of a Birthday
Yesterday was my birthday. Hard to believe that through all my trials and tribulations, I somehow mustered together 26 years of life. The start of the day was… rough to say the least. Memories of past lives are as bipolar as they come. Some years it was a nice dinner, a club night with friends, or the most prevelant of them all: laying alone in my bed, cradling a handle of Tito’s, switching between crying or playing Super Smash Bros. all day. Or as I call it, the good old days.
Even if you are not in recovery, a special day, as insignificant as they come, can have dramatic consequences on the psyche depending on actions took. And that morning I made a bad choice.
I wallowed and drowned in self pity, immediately jumping to conclusions of abandonment and being disowned.
These thoughts were not true…
Because then the texts started coming. Mom, Dad, my Brother, aunts and uncles, friends, roommates, colleagues, group chats. Everyone was there. No matter the cage we imagine ourselves in; one that chokes us in a crowded hall; we are never truly alone. It is a choice to recognize that in open-minded optimism.
Connection nowadays can be frightening. With the increase of stimuli and rewards at our palms, our brains trick themselves into the desire for constant validation. And then there is the following despair of not having enough likes on a Facebook post. I feared for a time that people don’t like me for who I am. Maybe it was because I didn’t like myself.
But technology does have one startlingly obvious benefit. We have community right there. Text a friend. Better yet, call them. Join a Discord server that interests you. Play a video game with a microphone. Form your village. Being alone is impossible. Loneliness is the cage we can break out of.
Don’t overwhelm yourself. Make sure you block out some time for you. Dopamine and pleasure are only par for the course. We must regulate in order to maintain calm and awareness. As Tarkovsky said, time spent alone can be of great benefit and a source of spiritual growth. Sitting by yourself for an hour isn’t the end of the world as it first may feel. Teach yourself how to spend time alone. Go for a walk in a nearby trail or park, or relax in the sun on a nice day. Watch that movie on your watchlist you’ve been itching to see but couldn’t find the time. Try doing these without your phone. It will be startling, uncomfortable at first. Maybe even unbearable. It will be like learning how to walk again.
Give yourself room to breathe, knowing that your village isn’t leaving anytime soon. Change the way you see yourself and the world.
Things I Did This Week
I was somehow bamboozled into watch A Family Affair, a fresh romcom starring Queen Nicole Kidman and Zac Effron. I only have one question for you Nicole: What on god’s green earth is you doing in a Lifetime movie??? (Please don’t slander Lifetime movies, they are a hoot and a holler, and I have friends who work very hard on them.)
In a frivolous escapade, I and a few others Saw Sequels. Every. Single. One. We were all smirking and giggling like the good freaks on nature we are. I highly recommend making a big old bowl of popcorn and marathon these mfs with the gang.
Of course, being a good, certified gamer, I could I not resist the allure of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. I can (an probably will) write dozens of articles on this banger alone. After having complete most of the DLC over the past few weeks, I can describe the experience as this: For the first hour or so, you will continuously ram your head into a brick wall. You will soon get fed up and explore the area, where - surprise surprise - another brick wall awaits. Hours later you will return to the first brick wall and pulverize it to dust after 3 more hours of pure rage. And by god, you will love it. 10/10 get good.
After Of Blood and Fire left an immense craving in my mind, I stumbled my way into another indie fantasy series, Riyria. In short: all you need to make a great fantasy epic are two guys who are experts in their respective fields of combat and continuously fail upward.
I haven’t started it yet, but as a little birthday treat for myself, I bought Christopher Buehlman’s The Daughter’s War, his newly released prequel to The Blacktongue Thief, which might be my favorite book from last year. Really excited to see his world through a completely different point of view, a character nearly the complete opposite of his last protagonist.