MoAB #11: Solitude or social connection?

This is my weekly edition of the "Making Of A Book" series. If you've ever been curious about how a book is created and what happens behind the scenes in the life of an author, this newsletter is your answer. Want to receive this straight to your inbox every week? Simply input your email here! :)

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Happy Tuesday :)

Last week, I mentioned I had an important announcement if you’re an immigrant in the United States.

Here it is: I’m collaborating with Saiman Shetty to write & publish a book on immigration, aimed at helping skilled immigrants looking for alternatives to the traditional H-1B visa path that most people walk. If this interests you, comment below with your email and you’ll be added to the list to be notified of future updates.

This will be the only book of its kind and will come along with a community on top. So come join!

Now, onto the newsletter.

Side note: I’ve changed the look of the newsletter. Hope you like it! :)

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💭 Balancing Solitude & Social Connection

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher.

But most people today know him as something else: the guy who spent 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days living alone in the woods, next to the Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.

Based on his transcendental experience, Thoreau published the now-renowned book Walden.

Walden is many things. It’s a document of his life in the woods; a call for minimalism and self-sufficiency; a social experiment; and a lesson in solitude.

Solitude

Solitude is not akin to loneliness, as you don’t choose the latter. Solitude is a state of mind. Solitude is learning to enjoy your own company (even when you’re amidst others); practice metacognition, and indulge (and have fun) with your thoughts.

Thoreau didn’t just enjoy solitude; he passionately sought after it.

So reading Walden invokes a sense of romanticism around the idea of solitude.

However, this abstracts the fact that solitude is also incredibly hard.

But, solitude is not hard because we’re incapable of it; it’s hard because we rarely get the chance to practice it.

Thoreau perceived his world in the 1800s as one filled with gossip, useless distractions, and meaningless connections. Now, what do we say about our current world then, where advertisements chase us everywhere, entertainment demands our attention, and distractions are the norm?

Oh well.

Social Connection

By social connection, I don’t mean the number of connections we have on Facebook or LinkedIn.

I refer to our capacity for connecting with people in real life; the number of meaningful conversations we have every week where we listen and feel heard; and the effort we put into maintaining our relationships.

I vividly remember a night from my senior year of undergrad. I had gone out to have dinner with half a dozen peers at the request of my roommate for her birthday. But, I had a poor relationship with half of the people at the dinner table and didn’t speak with them. I was quiet the entire night. There was a moment when, after dinner, standing amidst the crowd, I thought, “If I were to disappear right now, would anyone miss me here?” The pang of loneliness I felt that night is the barometer with which I’ve measured the rest of the lonely encounters in my life. It showed me what it felt like to not be heard, loved, or cared for.

Just like solitude, forming true social connections are hard.

But, just because it’s hard does not make it unworthy of a goal. In fact, if any goal were to give you a return on investment for the rest of your life, it would be forming true social connections.

Balancing Both

Although it may seem so, solitude and social connection are not two sides of a coin.

Solitude can be felt when you’re sitting next to your best friend, contemplating in silence.

Social connection can be felt when you’re by yourself, to nature and the world around you.

Solitude is just as important as social connection. Both require intentional effort.

Personally, I try to identify activities that give me both solitude and social connection. For example,

Solitude comes from being in nature, spending a day in silence, traveling on a train, and the occasional psychedelic.

Social connection comes from talking to people I love, listening empathetically, playing music with people (and also the occasional psychedelic).

And as with most things, it’s about establishing a balance between them.

What about you? How do you balance solitude with social connection?

Share this with a friend :)

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💭 Project: Balance behind-the-scenes

I’ll be honest. I’ve been struggling the past few weeks; unable to make progress.

The sense of clarity I had on March 17th, when I got first got the idea of the book, has been fading over the past month. It felt like someone replaced the power in my glasses with something much less potent. The mountaintop, which seemed clear as a sky on that day, feels fogged up now.

Ray Dalio lays out a 5-step process for getting what you want in his book, Principles.

• Have clear goals.
• Identify and don’t tolerate problems that stand in the way of your achieving your goals.
• Accurately diagnose the problems to get at their root causes.
• Design plans that will get you around them.
• Do what’s necessary to push these designs through to results.

I feel I’ve been in step 3 the past few weeks. I know some of the problems I’m facing clearly:

• Lack of deadlines: You’ve gone through what it feels like to pull all-nighters a day before a deadline, haven’t you? While it’s unsustainable, I’m realizing how incredibly effective deadlines are. Working on this book and meandering through the creative forest with no clear deadlines is slowing me down.
• Second-guessing myself: This happened a lot last week. As I was sifting through research papers, a voice inside my mind popped up. Pooja, maybe you should work on [another project] where the progress is clearer. Constantly second-guessing myself on Is this the best thing I could be doing right now? is beginning to get to me.
• Lacking inspiration: In the beginning, getting to work on the book came with a sense of freshness and excitement. Over the past month, those emotions were replaced by boredom and anxiety. I feel stuck in a creative rut.

While each of the above problems in isolation is manageable, they create a dangerous combination.

In fact, although I’m very excited about writing the book on immigration, I know my motivation there partly also stems from the lack of progress here.

But, I don’t plan to give up on this book. Not anytime soon.

I don’t know where this determination is coming from honestly.

Maybe it’s because I still believe in the idea and the fact that this book will help people.

Maybe it’s me acknowledging that a little bit of suffering is expected and okay.

Or maybe it’s you and the fact that you read this newsletter each week (thank you, btw <3).

In any case, I plan to design plans that will get me around all these problems.

One change I’ve already made is going from Escaping Autopilot back to Project: Balance again (did you notice it above?). Based on ruminating the past 3 weeks, I realized I’d wandered from my original idea and it didn’t feel right. Balance is what started this, and I’d still like that to be the main theme.

Let’s see what this week holds :)

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That’s it for now!.

Did you like this new format of the newsletter? Does it feel less cluttered, more coherent? Let me know.

I value and respond to each comment! :)

Yours truly,

Soundarya Balasubramani 💚

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🤔 Feeling more curious?

[Essay] Solitude chapter from Walden: (15 min) This website has the entire book uploaded, along with comments from people on the margins!

[Video] Are we in control of our decisions?: (20 min) A humorous and inspiring talk by Dan Ariely on our "autopilot" mode in making decisions.

[Music 😉] John Cage's 4'33 by William Marx: (5 min) Enjoy a few minutes of... (ahem) music. And be sure to watch people's reactions to it.

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🎁 Reward Program

The next time you meet your friend, what if you could have a conversation on mimetic theory, how stress affects your body, or what balance means to you?

If you're enjoying this newsletter, referring your friends to it (find your unique link here) is a no-cost way to improve conversations and get little rewards.

Begin by bringing in just 3 friends and get my Weekend Inspiration checklist. 😁

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