How To Be Alone

HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.

There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).

And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.

And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that communitie's not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.

you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

[MonstroVids]

IDK why Youtube recommended a 10 year old video but its better than 99% of the stuff trending today

[verticus]

This woman was the main character before being the main character was cool

[leahsfieldnotes]

Uhm why was this not recommended 11 years earlier??? i love this

[Psychopathie]

After 14 years, I’m crying over this..
I hope you’re doing well today 🤍🤍

[eragoncarvahall]

"RESIST THE URGE TO HANG OUT WITH YOUR CELLPHONE"
This line hit home for sure

[Ashleybmakingvideos]

“Dance like nobody’s watching... because they’re probably not.”

[daviddave]

I refused to believe this was created 10 years ago. Its almost 2021 and the quality is just better than so many youtube videos I've seen

[NoTimeForGoblins]

It's not an "Aesthetic" it's just art. Aestheticism has been over-saturated, over-capitalized and over-monetized by Tik Tok. It's become a uniform for identity to box yourself into and conform to. This is art, it's expression, it's poetry, it's liberation and it's fucking gorgeous. This isn't chained to an aesthetic but rather it's unfettered from aesthetic and cannot be boxed in as it's an entire existence of an experience from a human being who wanted to freely express an aspect of humanity through her art.

[estherrsue]

so you’re telling me this little aesthetic masterpiece has been around for 10 years and it took a pandemic for youtube to recommend me this??

[hicranf]

So it’s recommended to everyone 10 years later? Cool.

[krystamg]

I use to listen to this in high school in 2010 when I felt I was the loneliest person on earth. This video is one of the reasons I am here and resilient. Today I am a therapist and share this video to my clients, especially my young ones. Being alone is OKAY. <3 Thank you for posting this years ago. From teenage/adult me

[lulualkadi]

i love how this video was made 10 years ago and its still popping up into people's recommended and im glad that it popped into mine cause i needed to hear this. thank you

[domerpy]

A decade later this is in my recommended when I'm feeling more alone than ever. Youtube knows me too well.

[evilidk]

She is a time traveler she was originally from 2020 she was preparing everyone for the pandemic

[pawanchouhan]

Youtube thought this is the perfect time to recommend this to me after 14 years.
And I loved it.

[tiffanyferg]

Love when vintage youtube videos randomly pop into everyone’s recommended. This is really great ✨

[chloe]

"Dance like no one's watching because they're probably not and if they are assuming it is with best and human intentions"

[imidianedely]

i'm honestly shocked that this was posted 10 years before, but the editing is like today haha

[dweeby]

I’ve been returning to this video again and again for almost a decade. Every heartbreak and episode of isolation has been met with these words. And I know I’ll be coming back again. Thank you.

[lancewilliams]

I recall watching this 10 years ago, and laughing with my friend at it, now that friend and I arent cool anymore and I cringe at how immature I was; this hittin differently now lmao I admire this greatly