(It's as if you care that my life consists of rain, chiaroscuro, sfumato, trees, open spaces, white walls, and open-ended dreams where I wake up crying.)

Sleeping is a solitary activity done in company. In fact, in my life now, everything is a solitary activity done in company. This is what solitude is. I understand why a close friend associates silence with solitude.

I know now how solitude is different from loneliness. Solitude is something you learn to live with. You walk on the streets away from your workplace, and you pause to check the feeling that you have forgotten something behind, yet never able to remember what that thing is. Solitude does not make you miss anyone. It is when you would not allow an Other to penetrate your thoughts. It is when you do not care if you exist anymore and if anyone recognizes your existence. Loneliness is something you tell the whole world that you are feeling. Loneliness is the awareness of the feeling in-itself, and it is always associated with an urge to fend it off by doing something about it. Whereas solitude is almost a feeling of resignation. To quote my close friend, of being "tired of chasing after things."


Most important of all, solitude is a long-term feeling, while loneliness is something that does not always last. Perhaps this is the reason why Garcia-Marquez had rather named his book One Hundred Years of Solitude than One Hundred Years of Loneliness.