On Solitude

Nov 30, 2025

High school, for me, was largely spent alone. Not in a sad way, just in a quiet one. Swimming laps before sunrise on the weekends, staring at the bottom of the pool while I counted tiles and listened to nothing but my breaths, splashing, and thoughts. Then an hour-long train ride to and from school, five days a week, for four years straight. This period of my life gave me an inordinate amount of time to think. And whether I liked it or not, it was a transformative part of my life.

Reflecting on it now reminds me of Hamish McArthur, one of my favorite pro climbers. In an interview, he talked about how climbing alone lets him slip into his own world, where movement, breath, and focus are the only things that exist. No conversation. No comparison. Just presence. Some people find that kind of solitude intimidating; he finds strength in it.

Initially when I moved to Colorado alone for my Apple internship, I was extremely fearful. Would the silence hurt? Would it consume me? I had lived in one place my whole life, surrounded by familiar people similar to me. Suddenly, I was in a city where I knew no one, unsure what life would be like. I pictured isolation as an anechoic chamber, one where I would lose my mind after a period of time. The longest anyone has ever tolerated one is about 45 minutes before the silence becomes unbearable. I wondered if Colorado would feel the same.

But the quiet turned out to be a mirror.

For the first time in my life, everything was stripped down to essentials: routine, work, self. I cooked. I walked alone. I climbed alone. I filled weekends however I wanted. And in that space, I rediscovered parts of myself I’d never heard under the noise of life—what I loved, what was draining me, what motivated me. Loneliness didn’t shrink me. It sharpened me.

Recently, I’ve started seeing it in other places too: TikToks of people “raw-dogging” airplane flights, no music, no movies, no stimulation, forcing themselves to be bored—the modern version of sitting with yourself.

Fast-forward to now: I live in the South Bay with no car. At first it felt like a restriction, but now that I’ve adjusted, it feels like alignment. I walk everywhere. I think more. I’m forced into slowness, not trapped but held. The same way I was on the train. The same way I was staring at a pool floor. The same way I was in Colorado, with no familiar anchor to grip. I’ve learned that solitude isn’t the absence of people, but rather the presence of self.

This isn’t to say I prefer isolation or that I don’t enjoy meeting new people. It’s about energy and choosing where it goes. Hamish climbs alone sometimes, but he also climbs with partners who push him. Solitude is not avoidance, it is balance. I never sought out loneliness for its own sake, but whatever life handed me, I tried to learn from it. And ironically, being alone made me reach out more. I found myself talking to strangers at climbing gyms, starting conversations with people I would have walked past before. Solitude made connection feel more intentional and meaningful.