What is Solitaryism?

Simply put, “solitaryism” is the joyful art of living alone.

Living a solitary life should not be full of loneliness and bitterness. It should be a celebration of who you are as a person. There was no word to encapsulate the joy and security found in a world without friends and family, so the word solitaryism was born.

Today’s society is not much of a society, is it? America has become a random collection of strangers, and its people have very little in common with one another. If you live in a big city, chances are you may have lived next door to someone for years and not even know their name. In most cases, you wouldn’t even want to know their name or anything about them. For the past 30+ years life in the United States has become more isolating for its citizens, and this trend started over a decade before the usual culprits of social media and smart phones were even invented. “Experts” talk about the “Loneliness Epidemic” in America (and the rest of the West) and cite statistics of low marriage rates along with increasing rates of depression and other psychological disorders. You didn’t create this, and you sure didn’t ask for this. You just find yourself having to deal with it.

Most young people know that by the age of 30 they are not going to have the marriage, kids and house their grandparents had. That expensive college degree is no longer the golden ticket to a better life.  These are things that most people accept in the early 21st Century. We have put all these things aside as fantasies based on a reality of a long-gone age.

But what about socialization? If we’ve discarded in our minds those things of the old society that are no longer available to us, then why do we still think we must have a group of friends? The “bro philosophy” of the day, repeated ad nauseum online is, “You're the average of the five people spend the most time with.” While repeating this phrase, the bro gurus will also tout the need to create a “tribe.”  This is nonsense. This is based on a mode of thinking that hasn’t caught up with our 21st Century reality. The bottom line here is, in our so-called “society,” you don’t need friends, and you don’t need to waste your time on this subject any more than you need to be upset that you don’t have a new house, two kids and a beautiful spouse by the age of 30. Not having friends is the nature of life in modern-day America. It’s the reality we find ourselves in.

Part of the “Loneliness Epidemic” is rooted in the fact that people are longing for this world that no longer exists, a world of social connectedness that slowly began fading away sometime in the 1990s. The “bro gurus” will tell you to up your game. Go to the gym, buy better clothes, get a haircut, and the famous line, “Clean your room.” This is trite advice that gets repeated over and over and doesn’t help the situation one bit. In fact, it contributes to increased negative feelings when people realize that none of it works and they further internalize it by thinking, “Well, I just must be a loser.”

There is only one solution: Ditch the socialization game. That’s where solitaryism comes in. Once you go deep inside yourself and decide to go it alone in the world, you break through a barrier and come out feeling liberated and free on the other side. Not having friends and not creating a family of your own is not a bad state of being. In fact, given our situation in the early 21st Century, it is the preferred state. There is much joy living your life without the nonsense. Do you really want to waste your time, energy on money on a losing proposition?

Be happy alone.