Writing is a lonely business; or, rather, it is a business done alone . . . | Extract from Ghosting
Writing is a lonely business; or, rather, it is a business done alone. In this sense writing imitates life. Although we may spend much of our time with other people, essentially we live our lives alone. It may seem as if we are sharing our lives all the time – with commuters on the train, shoppers in supermarkets or, more intimately, with marriage partners, close friends, lovers. But these connections are as nothing compared with the lifelong communion we have with ourselves. What we tell others is only a tiny distillation of what we tell ourselves; and what we know of others is only what they choose to tell us, or what we have gleaned from the surfaces – the look in the eyes, the body posture, the sweat on the brow. Solitude is often seen as a dismal, cheerless state, yet there is surely great point and purpose in it. Indeed aloneness seems to contain a happy paradox: it is when we are alone that we best understand how we are hitched to the world, how we are connected to others. Our sense of self is manifestly shaped by others: our mothers, to begin with, then our immediate family and friends, also by random encounters and chance bondings. But that sense of self which is linked to our awareness of others resides, curiously, at the heart of being alone. Much of what is important in life takes place inside us.
