Loneliness or Solitude?

"Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone.  It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone.  And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone."  --Paul Tillich

Photo credit:  Larry D. Fenwick

Last week's blog compared the social life of homesteader Isaac B. Werner with those living today, who engage significantly, sometimes primarily, through social media.  Isaac was a bachelor, living at a distance from towns in a community in which most of his neighbors were married couples.  I have blogged in the past about farmers on the prairie working together, about the local school house serving as the community social center, and about the often misunderstood fact that population density was far greater on the prairie than it is today, with 3 or 4 homesteads in each square mile.  However, Isaac and others in his community were often alone, especially at night and because of weather.  

This blog reflects on the distinction between loneliness and solitude, and the impact of the two circumstances.  The quote at the top of this blog is by the German-American Christian existentialist philosopher and Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich, who lived from 1886-1965.  His words offer a thoughtful way to reflect on the difference between two words, both of which involve aloneness.

Photo Credit:  Lyn & Larry Fenwick

In My Antonia, by Willa Cather, an immigrant neighbor commits suicide, even though he had a loving family to support.  The narrator says, "I knew it was homesickness that had killed Mr. Shimerda, and I wondered whether his released  spirit would not eventually find its way back to his own country."  The narrator recalls what the man's daughter had told him of "...his life before he came to this country; how he used to play the fiddle at weddings and dances.  I thought about the friends he had mourned to leave,  ...Such vivid pictures came to me that they might have been Mr. Shimerda's memories, not yet faded out from the air in which they had haunted him."

In Rebecca Loncraine's biography of L. Frank Baum, she quotes from the diary of Baum's sister-in-law, whose isolated claim was in Dakota Territory.  Needing to be left alone with her child frequently when her husband traveled on business, she wrote:  "This is awful country...and I want to live East.  ...Alone all day and night again...dreadful, dreadfully forlorn.  Can't stand being alone so much."

Both of these accounts express the crippling effects of loneliness; yet, many people living today, even those living in urban environments and with access to social media with which to stay connected to others, suffer from symptoms caused by social separation--disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune systems, inflammation, and higher levels of stress hormones.  Researchers report that social isolation is a growing epidemic, with physical, mental and emotional consequences.  An article by Dhruv Khullar in December of 2016 cites extensive studies showing that an increasing number of Americans say they are lonely, the numbers doubling from the 1980s, increasing from 20% to 40%.  Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline and cause premature deaths.

Photo Credit:  Lyn Fenwick

For younger people, loneliness is often caused by what scientists call "Maladaptive social cognition" or difficulty interacting with others.  For older adults, loneliness is often the result of family members moving away, close friends dying, their own poor health, and their limited mobility.  Khullar  concludes his report by saying, "A great paradox of our hyper-connected digital age is that we seem to be drifting apart."  Reflecting back to last week's blog, should we wonder whether all of those hearts and thumbs-up and likes, and the dopamine bursts that come with them, are really making us feel connected with others?

In the late 1800s, Isaac frequently had opportunities to attend social events, yet chose to stay home by the fire to read or write letters.  Not every evening alone means a person is lonely or feels isolated.  Albert Einstein wrote, "Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature."   In fact, many well known men have agreed on this point.  "One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude," wrote Carl Sandburg.  Even in the case of married couples and close friends, Rainer Maria Rilke saw the need for them to respect breaks from too much togetherness.  "I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people:  that each protects the solitude of the other."

Kristina Randle, Ph.D. expressed this irony:  On one hand, the desire to isolate is a symptom of depression but on the other hand it can be a sign of a psychologically healthy individual.  

Self-described introvert Sophia Dembling says, "Solitude is great, until it's not."  Expressing that same need for balance, English artist, art critic, and author Phillip Gilbert Hamerton (1834-1894) wrote:  "We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest."

Photo Credit:  Lyn Fenwick

In the prime of his life, Isaac Werner seems to have managed this balance.  He was active in his community, encouraged people to work together, and maintained written correspondence with his family and educated people; yet, he enjoyed solitary reading and quiet evenings alone by the fire in reflection of one kind or another.  It was only in his final years that ill health isolated him, compounded by the dwindling correspondence with his siblings.  Dr. Dhruv Khullar's article ends with these words, obviously of particular relevance for the elderly and the home bound:  Human connection lies at the heart of human well-being.  It's up to all of us--doctors, patients, neighborhoods and communities--to maintain bonds where they're fading, and create ones where they haven't existed.  

Hannah Arend, one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th Century (1906-1975) believed that "The lonely man finds himself surrounded by others with whom he cannot establish contact or to whose hostility he is exposed.  The solitary man, on the contrary, is alone and therefore can be together with himself."

Blogger Aditi Khurana summarizes the differences between Loneliness and Solitude in the following ways:  Loneliness is painful and negative, leaving us feeling excluded, unwanted, unimportant or unnoticed, even when we are with others.  It causes a sense of punishment or rejection that depletes us.  Solitude, however, is a positive state in which we can enjoy our own company and reflect on ourselves, others, our life, and our future, providing greater self-awareness, creativity, growth, and fresh insights.  It is something we choose and grounds us in who we are, enabling us to reach out and give to others.

Combining some of the issues raised in last week's blog about social media with ideas expressed in this blog, seemed to me appropriate.   

Introducing Young Readers to Oz & Other Classics

Librarian Lynette Armstrong Introduces Lyn to 5th Graders

It has been so much fun sharing Oz with fans, young and old.  However, with many young readers, the book is a surprise.  Their acquaintances with Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, and Lion is through the movie.

Librarian Lynette Armstrong invited 5th graders at her school to join a lunch time book club, and their first book was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  When she brought all of the 5th grade students to Forsyth Library on the Fort Hays State University campus, I hope I encouraged those who had read the first Oz book to consider reading more of the Oz series by L. Frank Baum, and perhaps to continue reading those books by Ruth Plumley Thompson and other authors that carry on the series, and for those who had not read the first book, perhaps I tempted them.

"I think I'd like to read that book."

I was delighted to hear from a friend who attended the events in Hays that his enthusiasm for Baum's book rubbed off on his young son.  He told me that he had tried unsuccessfully to interest his boy in an Oz book for young readers, but in telling his son about the events at FHSU, apparently something clicked, and during the boy's bedtime bath he told his dad, 'I think I would like to read that book.'  His father remembered how frightened of the flying monkeys he was as a child, and that just may have been an inherited trait, as his son didn't like the monkeys either!

Without the 1939 MGM movie, many children would never have heard of Dorothy and her trip to Oz.  Yet, why are they no longer discovering the book?  I decided to go online to explore why so many kids only know the movie.  After all, there continue to be new Oz editions with incredible illustrators like Charles Santore, Michael Hague, and Robert Ingpen.  Scott Gustafson's beautiful painting of the main characters is available as a jigsaw puzzle. Access to Oz for this generation of kids is still easy.

Dorothy by Charles Santore

I found a website called Common Sense Media with "50 Books All Kids Should Read by Age Twelve, but almost no children's classics were on their list.  Alice in Wonderland did make their list, as Alice did at another website with a specific list titled 'Our Favorite Classic Children's Books,' which included Alice, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, and several newer classics, Golden Books, and European Fairy Tales, but no Baum.  I finally tried Wikipedia, and under 'List of children's classic books,' which is organized by centuries and then listed by year of publication, I finally found The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 1900 as the first listing under 20th Century.  If I were making my own list of recommended books for young readers, I would select a great many from years before 2000.

Hans Christian Anderson

In the 19th Century listing I noticed Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, first published in English in 1846.  Since L. Frank Baum said he wrote the Oz series to be the fairy tales of American children, why are young parents reading European Fairy Tales to their children and neglecting Baum's books?

Alice in Wonderland certainly deserves to be on book shelves of American children.  The original edition by Lewis Carroll was published in 1865, thirty-five years before Baum's in 1900.  While both Dorothy and Alice arrive unexpectedly in different lands and meet unusual characters, the author of The Real Oz, The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum, Rebecca Locraine, explained in an interview:  "...their similarities are, I think, only superficial...For me, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has always been far more direct and elemental, whereas the Alice books are more intellectual, and were less satisfying to me as a child."  So why omit Oz from modern recommended reading lists.  (See last week's post for reasons why adults should read Baum.)

From Carroll's original manuscript

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie was first published in 1911, eleven years after the first Oz book but during the time other books in the Oz series were being published.  Like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Barrie's book as been the subject of movies, animated and live action, yet it was included among current book recommendations while Oz was not.

In 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain was published, and like the other books already mentioned, it has been the subject of movies and other adaptations.  Other books written for young readers during the time Baum's Oz books were published are Anne of Green Gables by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery in 1908, and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1911, both of which have been adapted for films and television.  All three of these books remain popular.

Other popular books from the period, like The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908), and Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (first publically published 1902)  feature animal characters in a real landscape.  Christopher Robin, which was published in 1926, was based on a real child, author A.A. Milne's son Christopher Robin Milne, but the land in which he played with his friends was Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England, and his friends were his actual toys brought to life by Milne.    

Cover Art of 1915 Edition

The six wonderful books mentioned in the two preceding paragraphs lack the supernatural fantasies of Baum's characters, but their publications and the times in which the fictional characters lived are during the period Baum's books were published.  Clearly, writing styles and settings from the past are bridges children easily cross.

I did not take a survey of the 5th graders to whom I spoke to see if they had read any of the books I have mentioned in this blog, so perhaps their familiarity with these books is also from movies and television.  Perhaps my blog should not be about disappointment that more young readers are not reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz but a broader regret that more young people are missing the delight of other great children's classics, and worse, those books are being ignored on recommended reading lists.

I have quoted Einstein before in this blog saying, "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.  If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

Cover of 1st Edition

L. Frank Baum intended his stories to be American fairy tales, and his imaginative characters and their adventures would certainly seem to stimulate the minds of children in the same way as the European fairy tales Einstein recommended.

Author Gregory Maguire, a former professor of children's literature and well known for his four adult novels of the Wicked Years sequence,  inspired by Baum's books, was asked by an interviewer whether there is still a place for L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carrol, and the Brothers Grimm in our post-modern world.  

Cover of 1st U.S. Edition

Maguire replied:  "For adults, there is such a thing as post-modernism.  For children, there is only modernism--the here, the now.  Learning that the fairy tales, for instance, were largely maintained by an oral tradition and not collected until the 18th and 19th centuries, is a very adult understanding.  Kids don't know about what happened the year before they were born, much less what several centuries ago means.  Because of this peculiar limitation in children's understandings of time and culture, the fairy tales remain always news, always new.  And so do the works of great nonsense fantasists Lewis Carrol and L. Frank Baum.  That Dorothy doesn't instant-message her Best Friends Forever back in Kansas while her house is elevated by a tornado offers no confusion to young readers.  They take each story, and all its parameters, as mysterious givens.  So did we, in our time and place as children."

Gentleman Don

Regular followers of this blog may remember the fun series "Your Favorite Children's Books, 1-4 (March 26, 2015 through April 16, 2015) in which blog readers shared memories of their own favorite children's books.  One of my childhood memories was of a book titled Gentleman Don, published in 1910, long before I was born.  I loved it.  Many years later I located a copy online and ordered it.  Sadly, the Victorian style held far less appeal to me as an adult.  My experience reinforces the truth of Gregory Maguire's opinion that youngsters relate differently to stories, allowing their imaginations to eagerly slip into the text. 

Illustration by Robert Ingpen

I began this blog to encourage parents and grandparent to introduce the children they love to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  The 5th graders I spoke to at the Forsyth Library certainly did not give me the impression they thought they were too old to read Oz.  I urge you to skip the reading lists for modern children for a while and consider Aesop's Fables from 600 B.C. or Robinson Crusoe from 1719.  Do you remember the fun of reading some of these 19th Century books, like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1819), The Three Musketeers (1844), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864),  The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883), Black Beauty (1877), Heidi (1884), and Treasure Island (1883).  

Don't forget the 20th Century--Just So Stories (1902), The Call of the Wild (1903), Mary Poppins (1934), The Diary of Anne Frank (1947), Charlotte's Web (1952), The Borrowers (1952), To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), and by all means, don't forget The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).