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Loneliness and Solitude

My dad was not only a Professor of Philosophy, but he answered more or less to the stereotype of an absent-minded professor. This caused much amusement within the family and among friends and his students. The only person not amused was my mother! When I look back, I realize that I owe him a lot in shaping my own life's philosophy. As a kid, whenever I used to tell him that I was feeling bored, he would drop pearls like: Boredom is a sign of an uncultured mind. An educated mind will always find something to engage itself, even when no outside source is available to engage, stimulate or endorse us'. Here educated' did not mean formal education.

I had always thought, that there was a very qualitative difference between Loneliness' and Solitude'. It was not just a simple situation of being physically separated from others, but in loneliness' there was a deep lack of the spiritual element that is, either one is in a state of deprivation or there is a disconnect with the outside world and possibly with one's inner self, too. To be on the safe side, before starting this piece, I checked many dictionaries both at home and on the Net. If one goes by them, then both the words, loneliness' and solitude' can almost be used interchangeably. Solitude', on the other, hand to me signifies a state, where by choice or otherwise we are physically separated from others, but do not feel disowned by the world or by God. The presence of grace is very much there. We find within us, an unbounded sense of oneness with all things animate and inanimate. We lose ourselves and feel dissolved with the great cosmos outside us and within us. This is not something, that only great hermits or spiritual masters achieve, but ordinary folks like you and me, too. When we are lost in a sunset, or transported by a great concert piece, a great painting or recalling a great book or verse, time stands still. We are then verily blessed with a state of solitude, which transcends us beyond our petty self, or which awaits approval of others.
The now famous book, The Lonely Crowd' by David Riesman was published in 1950. I read the book much later, but for a start the two words Loneliness' and Crowd' being uttered in the same breath, set me thinking How can anyone in a crowd be lonely?' This happens when the afflicted person is so self centered, that he or she needs and demands attention and approval of others, by way of right. A mind en-cultured with fine arts, music,

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