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Comment by Xcelerate | Hacker News Reader

As someone who spends a good deal of time alone because I enjoy solitary pursuits, I disagree with the article when it claims that alone time is a form of "liberation", "freedom", and gaining "control". It's been my experience that people who use terms like these to describe their solitude don't actually really enjoy it much at all and tend to only seek this alone time as a manifestation of an avoidant personality. In other words, they don't feel happy during this time by themselves, but they seek it as a way to demonstrate autonomy within their life. They like the idea of being alone, but not the alone time itself.

On the other hand, people who describe their alone time as "relaxing", "exciting", or "interesting" truly seem to enjoy that period without social interaction.

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That's pretty insightful. What I hear you saying, and I agree with what I hear, is that some look at alone time as a means of accomplishing a goal (freedom, et. al.) rather than pursing the solitary activity. Contrast that with myself (and I gather you as well) where I pursue a solitary activity for the sake of the activity, and the solitude is a side effect.

When I'm riding a motorcycle to a far away destination or running a trail on some mountain, I'm doing it to ride a motorcycle or to go for a run. I don't mind being alone, most likely even enjoy it, but that's not what I'm out there for. The exception could be sitting on a meditation cushion, but to me aloneness (EDIT: in the case of meditation) is more of a requirement than a goal.

With all that said, I do have a teensy nit to pick with the title: alone != lonely. Sometimes the two intersect, but not as a rule.

As a raging introvert who is also a bit of an extrovert at times - yes and no.

Sometimes I take up a solitary activity that I don't enjoy quite that much just for the sake of being alone. Going for a run in the morning somehow feels less weird than just sitting in my room staring at the wall. It also gets me away from the internet.

Now I could just be alone and away from the internet. But the mind is hyperactive and it craves distraction. That's when you have to trick it into accepting aloneness and nointernetness by giving it something better to do. Or simply forcing it to accept its fate.

> Going for a run in the morning somehow feels less weird than just sitting in my room staring at the wall.

It's all about branding. In most settings, yeah, it'd be labelled as weird. But if we call "sitting and staring at the wall" something like "meditation" it becomes all cool and esoteric. :-) (I say this as one who spends at least 30 minutes a day sitting and staring at a wall.)

Point taken, though. I guess I have enough solitary activities that I regularly partake in that I never gave thought to those that might need to actively seek out such activities.

> I guess I have enough solitary activities that I regularly partake in that I never gave thought to those that might need to actively seek out such activities.

I actually have to remind myself to partake in activities that involve other people (unless I'm currently working for a client on site). The bigger issue is true aloneness without that pesky internet. It's a powerful addiction.

Honestly, I feel more alone when I'm in the gym actively boxing with people than I do sitting at home where I can't help but check my messages ever couple of minutes.

In some circles, meditation is still viewed as weird.

But your comparison is curious. Indeed, to a external observer, a person looking at the wall and another doing meditation may look very alike, but what they are doing is the exact opposite of one another.

Dude I absolutely love being alone and "liberation", "freedom", and gaining "control" all resonate with me. No idea what "manifestation of an avoidant personality" means. "Relaxing", "exciting", and "interesting also apply. I do know that I'm terrible in a team and prefer working alone.

You sort of proved his point. Your preference for working alone is because you avoid being in a team.

A good team is better than being alone. A bad team... well, I'll take alone any day over that.

Exactly. A bad team just destroys productivity for the most part. You generally won't get any answers you seek in a reasonable fashion if the team is bad enough. In that instance you might as well work alone.

Not good and not bad. I wouldn't compare the two as it's a false dichotomy. Just as some tasks are better done in pairs, others are better done alone. You can work as part of a team, but also individually.

>Your preference for working alone is because you avoid being in a team

That's quite an assumption to make. We could easily turn it on its head: My avoidance of being in a team is because of my preference for working alone.

I might indeed be terrible in a team, and sadly go off alone. I might be terrible in a team, and yet happily go off alone. I might be terrible in a team, because I enjoy being alone so much more, and so I rarely get any experience with being in a team. (And when I do, I might barely put in any effort because I find it so tedious and unpleasant compared to my preferred manner of working).

If I know I'm happy doing A, and there is a disjoint activity B, then naturally my tendency to A will reduce my time spent doing B. There may or may not be correlation.

>That's quite an assumption to make.

>I do know that I'm terrible in a team and prefer working alone.

It's certainly not 'quite' an assumption.

The "and" leaves that sentence somewhat ambiguous with respect to any cause and effect ("and so" or "because I" might have swung it either way). But in the further context of:

>Dude I absolutely love being alone

>"Relaxing", "exciting", and "interesting also apply

I feel it becomes elevated to "quite" an assumption.

Astute.

My team considers me a great team worker. Some say stuff like motivating, leadership and mentor in my reviews. That's the extrinsic perspective. Intrinsically I love the sense of accomplishment I get from my own contributions. In comparison to the senseless bickering the team does I see my code, documentation and conversation as pithy and efficient. I know enough to keep these kinds of thoughts to myself. Some in the team don't. It tends to make them look arrogant and haughty.

How in the world do you know he avoids working in a team? Nothing he wrote implies that at all. "Preferring" to work alone doesn't even remotely mean he avoids teams. He could be working in a team all the time. That's completely consistent with also seeking out alone time during other moments in your life.

By your logic, someone who prefers leisure over work must apparently avoid work.

It may be situational, too. I have a family, and when I get the house to myself for a day, it definitely improves my mood and sense of calm. It's very restorative for me.

I can be in my office away from the family, but it's a completely different feeling than being actually alone in the house. Doesn't matter what I'm doing, either. Working, reading, playing, watching TV, etc. It's a very different feeling.

This seems unnecessarily presumptive. While it may be true that using terms like "liberation" and "freedom" implies at least a somewhat avoidant personality, I think you're really venturing too far to extrapolate from that that such people don't actually enjoy being alone.

Case in point: I would probably use those terms sometimes to describe alone time, and yet I enjoy the hell out of it. I don't seek alone time to "demonstrate autonomy" -- I seek it because I enjoy it, period. Part of the reason I enjoy it is because of the autonomy it involves, but I've never once isolated myself just to prove to myself that I have some sort of autonomy.

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