Solitude and Creativity

The current pandemic has us facing one of our biggest fears: staying alone, dealing with our own emotions and thoughts. However, this situation has also a great deal of advantages. While in self-isolation, we can use this time to improve ourselves by discovering new hobbies or just developing skills we have already gathered, cultivating our mind through reading. In fewer words, we finally have the time to learn how to deal with ourselves. And this is always a good thing.

As difficult as it may seem, self-isolation has its benefits. When spending your time alone, the key to handle this situation is to find a purpose in your suffering. In other words, focus on why your suffering is doing good to others as well as to yourself. Furthermore, the fact that you stick to a certain routine or that
everybody is doing the same thing provides you not only with a meaning, but also with a sense of belonging.

It's possible to be completely isolated and feel invigorated.

It is also possible to be surrounded by a crowd or be accompanied by close friends and feel lonely.

• Research showed that after social isolation, subjects' brain scans showed more activity in the midbrain when shown pictures of social cues.
• When subjects were hungry but had not been socially isolated, they showed a similar reaction to food cues, but not social ones. This shows that the drive for social contact and for things like food seems to be represented in a similar way.

Just jumping from one task to another in your to-do list or calendar does not help the mind absorb anything or learn.

The mind needs reflection time to digest information, filter out the mind-noise and convert meaning into learning. It pays to sit back and reflect, even if you feel irritated, vulnerable or bored.

From online learning for school kids to contactless delivery of Amazon products, the ongoing pandemic has already shown us many social, economical and cultural changes.

Embracing change and the new ways of doing things that were not feasible or acceptable earlier is the way forward, and makes us ready even in times of uncertainty.

Make a to-do list a day before and start without friction in the morning with complete clarity.

Having a structure of the day helps in your productivity, and gets you to finish your important tasks on time.

Try to block some time off your workday to have a stroll outside, or to make coffee, or a midday lunch break. This brings the day under your control.

“Loneliness, longing, does not mean one has failed but simply that one is alive.”

One way people have always dealt with loneliness is through creativity. By metamorphosing their reality into art, lonely people throughout history have managed to interchange the sense of community relationships could foster with their creative outputs.

The artist Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is known for his paintings of American cityscapes inhabited by closed-off figures who seem to embody a vision of modern loneliness.

Creativity thrives in limitations, and little check-in meetings with a specific agenda and a clear briefing to brainstorm can provide excellent results, as they have built-in time constraints.

Online collaborative tools let us literally be on the same page, editing a document together, collaborating using the phone or the built-in chat.

Remote working makes the participants prioritize time, effort and activities. There are less wasted minutes as the participants are prepared and on time.

When we're bored, two key things are happening in our minds: One is a 'desire bind' where someone wants to do something but not anything that's on offer. The other is when your mind is itching to be engaged.

Our first instinct when we experience some boredom is to fill it with Netflix lists, Instagram feeds, and TikTok videos. Riding out this boredom is vital though.

Boredom is not in itself creative. It's what it leads to that is significant. In the gap of boredom, you're motivated to look for something else, and there's a real chance you'll discover something new.

It is an umbrella term we use to cover for all sorts of things most people would rather not name and have no idea how to fix.
Plenty of people like to be alone. But solitude and seclusion are different from loneliness. Loneliness is a state of profound distress.

Primates need to belong to an intimate social group in order to survive; this is especially true for humans.
Separation from your group (either finding yourself alone or finding yourself among a group of people who do not know and understand you) triggers a fight-or-flight response.

Set your personal boundaries, so you have dedicated time to take care of yourself, your family or household, and your professional responsibilities. You won't be any good to your family if you regularly jump up to respond to work.

The key to success is deciding on expectations, then communicating those to others. You need to get clear in your mind what hours you will be attending to your work. Perhaps dedicate a space in your home as the "office," letting everyone know that you need privacy. Decide when you are "on" and when you are "off."

We all have tools in our pockets to help us.

• For example, consider using your phone's built-in alarm for taking breaks, or giving yourself a reminder to eat lunch, or taking a screen break to reduce eyestrain.
• If you find it challenging to work, consider a productivity method like the Pomodoro technique, where you work deeply for about 25 minutes, then take a short break. Repeat four of the cycles, then take a 30-minute break before starting again. There are many Pomodoro apps to help you.
• Don't forget to use the same technology to turn off notifications and distractions while you're working.

• Brainstorm and jot it down: Start with the prompt, "The time when..." List at least ten things.
• Narrow it down and focus: Go back to your list of ten and pick three things that are really bothering you, and you feel strongly about. Take 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to write. Focus on the details, the order of events, and especially how they made you feel.
• Pick one and tell your story: You don't have to write a memoir or be a creative writer. You can also write it from someone else's perspective. Writing it down is to say that this thing did happen.