对独处的需求

（英文原文来自The School of Life）

来自The School of Life

因为我们的文化将很高的价值赋予社交能力，那么必须去解释我们在一些方面需要很多独处，就极其别扭。

来自The School of Life

我们可以试着把我们的渴望看做与工作有关的东西：比如人们一般可以理解对完成一个项目的需求。但事实上，一个远不会受到尊敬且但却是更加深刻的渴望驱动着我们：除非独处，否则我们就有忘记我们自己是谁的风险。我们，那些被自己一刻不停地窒息的我们，把别人特别当回事，可能比那些在简单的没完没了社交排行榜上的人，更把别人当回事。我们亲近地聆听故事，我们把自己全然交出去，我们带着感情和共情回应。但结果呢，我们不能持续一直在一起游泳。

来自The School of Life

在某一点，我们已经有够多的交谈，将我们从自己的思维过程中剔除；够多的外在要求，使我们停止留心内在的颤动；够多的表面看起来欢快的压力，来否认我们内在潜伏着的忧郁的合法性；甚至，够多的简单粗暴的常识，摧毁我们的特质和并没有被很好描绘的嗜好。我们需要独处，因为在别人中的生活，展开地太快了。节奏一刻不停：那些玩笑，那些真知灼见，那些兴奋。有些时候，5分钟的社交生活，会占据1个小时的分析。因为，并不是每一个影响我们的情绪，我们的心智都会马上识别出来、理解，甚至真切地感受到，如它本来的样子。

来自The School of Life

与人们为伍之后的时间，我们内心有无数的，以未被处理的形式存在的感觉。也许是一个别人升起的，让我们焦虑，让我们产生想改变生活的冲动的念头。也许一个奇闻异事激起了一个嫉妒别人的野心，为了能发展起来而值得被解构和聆听。也许有人巧妙地对我们投了一个镖，并且我们不曾有机会去意识到我们很受伤。

来自The School of Life

我们需要一些安静的时间抚慰我们自己，通过系统地阐述一个解释，那些污秽可能从哪里来。我们远比我们被鼓励去设想的那样脆弱和皮肤细嫩。通过深入地再服侍自己，看起来好像我们是别人的敌人，但是我们的独处时刻实际上是对社交活动的价值的敬意。除非我们有时间独处，否则我们不会是我们想要展现在同伴中的那个人。

来自The School of Life

我们不会变得能提供新颖的选项。我们不会有生机勃勃和真实可信的看法。我们将会，某种程度错误地，有点像其他每一个人。我们被指向去独处，并不是因为我们看不起人性，而是因为我们适当地回应他人所承担的责任。独处更广的延伸，可能在现实中，是知道如何做一个更好的朋友和适当的伴侣的前提。

The need to be alone

来自The School of Life

Because our culture places such a high value on sociability, it can be deeply awkward to have to explain how much – at certain points – we need to be alone.

来自The School of Life

We may try to pass off our desire as something work-related: people generally understand a need to finish off a project. But in truth, it’s a far less respectable and more profound desire that is driving us on: unless we are alone, we are at risk of forgetting who we are.We, the ones who are asphyxiated without periods by ourselves, take other people very seriously – perhaps more seriously than those in the uncomplicated ranks of the endlessly gregarious. We listen closely to stories, we give ourselves to others, we respond with emotion and empathy. But as a result, we cannot keep swimming in company indefinitely. 

来自The School of Life

At a certain point, we have had enough of conversations that take us away from our own thought processes, enough of external demands that stop us heeding our inner tremors, enough of the pressure for superficial cheerfulness that denies the legitimacy of our latent inner melancholy – and enough of robust common-sense that flattens our peculiarities and less well-charted appetites. We need to be alone because life among other people unfolds too quickly. The pace is relentless: the jokes, the insights, the excitements. There can sometimes be enough in five minutes of social life to take up an hour of analysis. It is a quirk of our minds that not every emotion that impacts us is at once fully acknowledged, understood or even – as it were – truly felt.

来自The School of Life

After time among others, there are a myriad of sensations that exist in an ‘unprocessed’ form within us. Perhaps an idea that someone raised made us anxious, prompting inchoate impulses for changes in our lives. Perhaps an anecdote sparked off an envious ambition that is worth decoding and listening to in order to grow. Maybe someone subtly fired an aggressive dart at us, and we haven’t had the chance to realise we are hurt.

来自The School of Life

We need some quiet time to console ourselves by formulating an explanation of where the nastiness might have come from. We are more vulnerable and tender-skinned than we’re encouraged to imagine. By retreating into ourselves, it looks as if we are the enemies of others, but our solitary moments are in reality a homage to the richness of social existence. Unless we’ve had time alone, we can’t be who we would like to be around our fellow humans.

来自The School of Life

We won’t have original opinions. We won’t have lively and authentic perspectives. We’ll be – in a wrong way – a bit like everyone else. We’re drawn to solitude not because we despise humanity but because we are properly responsive to what the company of others entails. Extensive stretches of being alone may, in reality, be a precondition for knowing how to be a better friend and a properly attentive companion. Our Calm prompt cards can help us to find serenity despite daily anxieties and frustrations, to find out more, click on the link now.

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