The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude

As Voltaire once said, "The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude." Honestly, I couldn’t agree more. There’s something deeply comforting about being alone, but not idle.

Some days, I wake up to absolute stillness. No footsteps in the corridoor. No one asking what I would like to do today Just me, alone. But here’s what might surprise you: I don’t dread it. In fact, I’ve come to cherish it.

Yes, I live alone.
Yes, I’m single.
Yes, I’m older.
And yes, I will admit. I often go out of my way to avoid people.

Yet, I’m not lonely.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been resting in solitude—not as a punishment, but as a gentle unfolding. I’m cocooning in a relaxed farmhouse in the plantations of Lamphun, where the morning ducks quack me awake.

True happiness isn’t found in constant social interaction but in being meaningfully engaged with yourself.

I’ve been learning to understand my emotions instead of escaping them. I’ve been getting reacquainted with this body — fragile, recovering, complicated — as though it were a long-lost friend needing care.

I spend many of my days by myself absorbing Buddhist Dharma teachings. They’ve become both mirror and medicine. Through them, I’m learning to confront my discomfort through the lens of impermanence, watching reality as it is, without attachment, and recognizing the unpredictable nature of the self that keeps evolving.

I’m practicing how to hold pain without becoming it. It’s humbling. This process of softening into reality, of breathing through discomfort rather than running from it.

There are days I move slowly. I whisper encouragement to myself when the PEG tube bothers me, or when swallowing feels like a memory instead of a skill. I listen closely when my body says, “Not today.” And I obey. There’s a kind of intimacy in that, one I never had with myself before.

But I know how loneliness really works. I’ve seen it, and I’ve heard it in the tremble behind someone’s “I’m okay.” A dear friend, strong and funny, not getting enough clients to sustain his business. Another told me how hard it was to feel invisible in a crowd, dealing with chronic pain no one could see. Neither of them said, “I’m lonely.” But the silence between their sentences did.

And that’s what social neuroscience has shown us too. Dr. John Cacioppo, who spent decades researching loneliness, found that it isn’t about whether you’re alone or surrounded by people. Loneliness arises when you're going through something hard and you feel like no one is truly in it with you.

It's medical diagnoses.
It's grief that doesn’t clock out at 5 p.m.
It’s depression in a bright room.
It’s heartbreak, even in a marriage.
It’s the quiet, crushing feeling that your struggle is yours alone.

So here’s a truth I’ve come to live with: solitude and loneliness aren’t the same. One can be a sanctuary, the other a silent scream.

I do also understand we all have a collective responsibility, not just to notice the cries but to answer them.

I often think of someone who might be feeling the weight of being helpless and alone. Someone who could be struggling silently.

Sometimes, in those quiet moments, I reach out even when it feels awkward or intrusive. It means checking in with that friend who’s been unusually quiet. It means saying, “Hey, I don’t know what to say, but I’m here.”

That one small gesture can be the difference between someone spiraling and someone holding on. Reach out not to fix them, but to walk beside them. It might be the most human thing I can do with my Buddhist practice when I'm alone.

And as much as I love my solitude, I also know I can’t stay here forever. True practice must leave the cushion. Dharma is not just for quiet rooms and incense-lit meditations. It’s for messy human encounters. It’s for holding space for others, even when it’s uncomfortable.

As for me, I’ll be here now, in my quiet space, tube feeding milk, reading the Dharma, and listening to the strange symphony of my body.

Preparing myself slowly, not to return to the world reluctantly, but to re-enter it with gentleness, especially for those who are truly lonely.

Alone, yes. But not lonely. That kind of space brings a quiet healing, not just for me but for those around me too.