Truly being alone

[Scythe13]

[Lightspeed]

In the here and now I'm moderately comfortable with my own company. That's because I have reliable neighbours a few hundred yards away, and technology that will deliver me to civilization, or allow me to contact other humans whenever I wish (like via this e-mail)

Truly living alone is another matter entirely. Without any human contact whatsoever I would find it very difficult..... I hope not impossible, but very challenging, that's for sure.

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Some more thoughts:


When we first arrived at this location the silence in the environment was deafening….some of us took a while to come to terms with it.

But now we're acclimatised to it, its not so silent and isolated as it first appeared. Now we are much more tuned into the subtleties of the aural environment I can hear human activity for many many, miles around. This has developed to the point of being able to accurately identify individual tractor engines, where they are on the landscape and where their owners are heading. Likewise the buzz of chainsaws can be fairly accurately pin-pointed to areas of the forest with me having a pretty good idea of who’s doing what and where. Would you believe that felled pines can be heard crashing to the ground from over 1km away? Sounds of rifle and shotgun fire are easily heard over a vast range, but harder to direction find due to echos off the landscape.

Last Saturday, around 06.30 a strange noise spooked one of our cats, which alerted me to it too…it turned out to be an hot air balloon at least 4 miles away, but the sound of its burners reached me easily in the cool dense air.

I could give many more examples. The point is, that although quite isolated from other people here, we are not truly isolated and certainly not alone.

Another danger of being alone is sickness. A bout of flu at the end of last winter pretty much incapacitated me for a week, and for several weeks afterwards very weak . With outdoor temperatures of -10C I was unable to keep the log burner going, let alone go out and chop wood. Fortunately I had laid up a big enough pile of converted fire-wood and my wife was able to both take care of heating and also keep me fed watered and comfortable. This same event, if I were totally alone could have been a killer.

There’s more to being truly alone than just lack of chatter, be it in person or over electronic mediums.

Good for bringing this up S13, it’s a threat that I had not specifically identified until now.

[Skean Dhude]

It is difficult giving advice on how to be alone. It is in your nature, you either can do it, even for short periods of time, or you can't. It is a mental issue and with everyone being different you can't just give a bit of advice to help you adapt. You either do it, go insane and/or you die.

My only question is that if you were the Omega man then what would be the point of your life?

The most likely thing that would happen to you is that you became ill or injured and then you died. Take a while depending on what you are doing but one day you trip on something, a dog bites you, you eat something bad, something traps you and with no one to help or tend to you you simply die.

[bigpaul]

I am fairly certain that most people cannot and will not cope alone, we hear so many times "no man is an island" and I myself have noticed how people seem to have a herding instinct, you hear a particular noise and say to some one "whats that noise" and you get the reply "what noise" people are just so used to background noise they just don't notice it any more, so when something happens to remove all traffic, aeroplane and industrial noise I think they will just freak. remove other people from the equation and I think most people will go crazy. by most people I mean the general public. personally I prefer peace and quiet to other peoples noise but that's just me. even if you go off camping somewhere-even on your own- you'll probably find there are other people around, there are so many people these days its difficult getting away from them, that will change of course after an event when the population is reduced.

[River Song]

In the UK, there are a few registered 'hermits', living alone but with some connection to a religious community. This may not be your cup of tea but it is a source of strength for many

[bigpaul]

and then some people cant survive without "lippy and chocolate " eh RS??

[Steve]

You can always get a couple of dogs to keep you company.

[bigpaul]

yep any dog is better than most humans.

[bigpaul]

I don't think being alone is something that can be taught, unlike say storing water, or food storage "FIFO and Rotate, Rotate, Rotate", being alone is something you can either do or you cant do, and most cant, that's why "solitary confinement" is a punishment.

[Straight Shooter]

MR WILSON ! springs to mind here S.....CASTAWAY......people can think of this scenario all they like....and try to ready themselves which is fair enough...pretence is one thing ....the real deal is quite something else in short how ? will you find out......what practice a few weekends away ? good and i would encourage it ....but not the real deal.....only when it is real....will any of us truly find out , so until that time ....i do not feel the need to investigate it further ...this would assume you made it through the shtf now you have to come to terms with being alone.....the question is why did you bother in the first place ?.....we are practising survivalists.....We already find our own company fantastic and the mind set to match !