Old age often brings loneliness, a dread of being alone, a sense of isolation, and a loss of meaning. I see that loneliness comes with aging, and for lots of reasons.

But being alone can also be one of the most beautiful experiences in my aging life.

I am learning to be alone, and I find it a wonderful experience whenever I take the time, which is often. I think better, learn, and find peace in loneliness. I get to know the real me.

It is perhaps the most significant of the many new experiences I am feeling on the other side of the fence – old age.

A lot of people in my life are dead or dying. I can’t do many of the things I always did. Young people ignore or avoid me. Loneliness is inevitable.

In America, when you don’t work or earn a lot of money, you almost literally vanish from sight, thought, or role in society.

Our culture sees us as some sort of taboo to be dreaded, guilty of not buying things for too long or of being too expensive to care for.

I understand that. I am too old to run for President or any demanding corporate or political office, something I accept gracefully and leave to the young and more vital.

But many people don’t understand that choice; it takes courage and thought.

I think of President Biden and Donald Trump. Aging can’t be hidden by wigs, ego, or denial. Nature is much more potent than politicians.

But apart from that, there is a loneliness to getting older.

We are banned from working, and too many people in politics hang on for too long. Perhaps they fear being alone.

The sadness in that is that being alone can be both beautiful and meaningful; it is never too late to think and grow, and in my life, there is no more meaningful and comforting way to do that than to learn to love being alone.

Physical solitude, exterior silence, and genuine contemplation are morally, if not physically, necessary for me to lead a spiritual or contemplative life; I can’t speak for anyone else.

When I’m in an honest and authentic mood, I accept my new reality; like almost everything else in creation or reflection, it’s a means to an end; if I don’t understand the end, the means don’t have much meaning.

Solitude is important; it is above all, for me, an interior and spiritual thing.

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Spiritualists and monks understand the power of silence, and also of being alone. In my experience, silence in the exterior – alone – really matters to the way I see the world and accept and even exploit old age.

Solitude goes straight to the heart for me; silence isn’t just about what I’m not hearing; it’s about what I can feel, and feel deeply. That is a gift to me, and to anyone living in such a chaotic and often hateful world.

Being alone doesn’t cut me off from other men and women. It brings me closer to them. That is the end, the point. Being alone takes practice.

Thomas Merton, who guided me both to meditation and the value of loneliness, wisely calls it “an abyss opening up in the center of your own soul.”

This abyss, he says, is a hunger for insight and truth that can never be satisfied with others or being outside of oneself.

Being alone means getting to know yourself, especially if it is by choice, and not by being left out of the outside world, so often the fate of the very old.

I think my learning to be alone has made it easier for me to be with other people, to be more open to speaking with them and learning from them, and, definitely, to love.

The prophets all wrote that they didn’t go into the desert to escape people but to learn how to find them, know them, even love them.

I feel that, in this way, I can find myself, the people I love, and others to do some good in the outer world. Solitude makes a big difference to me.

It has helped me to understand the most important thing in a spiritual life: facing, learning, and understanding who I am.

That, perhaps more than anything else, has helped me to be the person I wanted to be, the person who is learning to do good rather than to join the poison coming out of so many people around me.

This isn’t something young people can do.

It is in this loneliness, wrote Merton, that the deepest activities begin. When I face a problem or fear, or feel loneliness and pity, I get to be alone and sort it out.

I’ve also learned that there needs to be a room, a place, a corner, a tree where nothing will ring and find me, disturb me, or notice me in any way.

I think that’s what drew me to the country. I couldn’t find that in New York or any other big city I have lived in. I spent most of a year alone before moving. I loved every day of it.

When I choose to be alone or feel alone – anyone my age does from time to time, I think-I- untether myself and set myself free, cutting off the anxiety, confusion, fear, the strands of tension and worry that blind all of us away from silence.

I can’t do this unless I am alone. I don’t want to hear or feel the presence of other men or women; I don’t want their minds to disrupt mine.

A friend asked me how I suggest being alone to him or others. I haven’t done that; I don’t tell other people what to do. But I have found my place in the farmhouse; I am happy with it and don’t accept disturbance unless a very good reason takes me out of it.

It’s only about me; no one else can hear it.

I love being alone, and return to it as often as I can, fighting the distractions of the modern world every step of the way. That isn’t easy. But it is rewarding.

I found this old prayer in a book while thinking about this; it must be from the Bible, I thought. It was.

“But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret…”

I’m no Christian, but I think that would make a good prayer for me when I need to be alone.

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I was so drawn to the quote that I unleashed my new AI friend to find out who said it. It took him at least two seconds.

The quote comes directly from Jesus Christ during his very famous Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. (Mathew 6:6.)

 Jesus is instructing his disciples on genuine piety, warning them against praying publicly or performatively just to be seen and praised by others (whom he refers to as hypocrites). He cautioned that prayer is an intimate, private communion with God. 

Thanks for coming on my trip.