Second Look: The Loneliness of the Writer (and my murdering work experience supervisor)

I’m looking back at articles I wrote years ago on Substack to see how I feel retrospectively. This time, it’s "The Loneliness of the Writer (and my murdering work experience supervisor)".

I’m looking back at articles I wrote years ago on Substack to see how I feel retrospectively. This time, it’s "The Loneliness of the Writer (and my murdering work experience supervisor)", published in March 2021.

I wrote this article more than four years ago, and honestly, I was in a very different place mentally. It’s struck me, reading this and other articles from the same period, just how raw my vulnerability was. I’ll likely delve into this in much more detail at some other time, but taking a step back, I can see my progression as a writer on these topics.

My focus initially gradually shifted from analysing other people's loneliness to excavating my emotional landscape. Later, this shifted as I spent time with a therapist, and evolved into someone actively working on connection skills and purpose. Most recently, I've discerned far more agency on my part; I’ve deliberately been actively developing strategies to build meaningful connections. In some ways, I’ve come full circle during this journey, from observer to participant to teacher.

Reviewing my article again after more than four years, something else stood out to me that I had never considered back then. My central thesis was drawing a line between my loneliness and that of writers, whilst ensuring I found a way to weave in the weird fact about my murdering work experience supervisor, because it makes for a good title.

Today I realise what I craved was excitement, and I diagnosed loneliness as both a barrier to that excitement and something I tried to romanticise as a pathway to it.

Clearly, I have a hero fantasy. As a teenager, I was deeply drawn to adventure heroes like Dirk Pitt and then later Jack Reacher - "rugged, handsome, talented loner" figures who were "men of high intelligence" but also lived exciting, action-packed lives. I explicitly say:

"The everyman writ large as a courageous warrior. In my loneliness, this was my dream role model."

I had a stab at my adventure novel "complete with the requisite nuclear threat, manly hero and car chases through London." This shows I was actively trying to create the excitement I felt was missing from my life. My attraction to marine oceanography was partly driven by dreams of "swashbuckling adventure on the high seas" - I wanted to be "Dirk Pitt in training."

I was also seduced by the idea of "the tortured lonely writer hidden in a garret turning out immaculate, and profitable, prose." Perhaps I was trying to reframe my loneliness as potentially productive and meaningful rather than just painful?

I can see the pattern: loneliness wasn't my goal, but rather something I experienced that became both an obstacle to the exciting life I wanted and something I tried to transform into a heroic narrative. I seemed to be asking, "If I'm going to be lonely anyway, can I at least be the romantic kind of lonely that leads to adventure and creativity?"

My early writing suggests that I was desperately seeking connection and excitement, yet trying to make the best of isolation by mythologising it. This resonates well with earlier childhood memories of creating imaginary worlds in my mind. I felt that I was somehow out of place and out of time, disconnected from the mainstream.

Without a doubt, my peripatetic life and schooling provided a distinct foundation for this. I was not Australian enough when I was in Australia, and not English enough when I was in England. I had a sense of being slightly out of phase with everyone else around me.

Decades later, this manifested in idolising technology success stories. I had a period when I thoroughly bought into the myth of the startup entrepreneur and read numerous biographies of tech’s leading lights. Instead of a starving artist in a garret writing a legendary novel, I reframed this as the solitary geek in the basement writing computer code that sold for millions.

I think it’s essential to make the distinction here between solitude and loneliness. Solitude researcher Thuy-vy Nguyen shows that chosen solitude can boost emotional regulation, contentment and creativity:

“In a society that often sees solitude as undesirable, the benefits of spending time alone are frequently underestimated. Yet many studies have highlighted the benefits of solitude. Used wisely, short periods alone can be profoundly restorative, offering a much-needed break from the hustle of daily life.”

I might delve more into this in a future article. I am someone who enjoys solitude in a space to ponder, ruminate, and write, even if it's sitting in a cafe with my laptop, as I am now, surrounded by a hubbub of conversation. I am alone, but sitting in intentional solitude to work on this article.

My analysis of Hemingway's paradox has been vindicated by recent research. Katie Rose Guest Pryal's 2024 analysis directly challenges Hemingway's claim, noting that he was severely depressed when he didn't travel to give that Nobel speech, and died by suicide seven years later. She argues,

"Hemingway was wrong. Creative groups have helped careers of creative people, including writers, for centuries. Isolation, on the other hand causes tragedy."

I now understand this as well. My absolute preferred framework for anything is a team, a collaboration. It’s why I enjoyed the community of working backstage in theatre, but that was transient, a group thrown together for a specific cause over a definitive timeline. That’s no longer my objective; instead, it’s cultivating a close-knit constellation of friends, engaging in communal activities and passions, with no end goal other than enjoying each other’s company, and growing individually as a result of sharing skills and ideas.

Whilst it now seems blindingly obvious, I no longer fantasise great sagas in my mind. Well, apart from the occasional ‘what if I won the lottery’, but that’s pretty common! I believe it’s a testament to my growth over the past few years that I no longer believe I need to escape my life, because I rather like it. I have found balance in my contentment.