LEARN TO BE LONELY... Dear Ones — A friend of this page asked me today if I wo... | Official Website for Best Selling Author Elizabeth Gilbert

I say you have to learn how to be with and a part of something in order to know how to be alone. I think it is only out of a deep anchoring in community that one can ever be free to explore the solitary.

She used to be curious about the people who sat alone in pubs and cafés, wondering if they were lonely and wanted company; if they were friendless by choice or irritable and irksome by nature and good at driving people away. But now she sees that there’s a freedom in being unknown and alone, with time to think unhindered by conversation and other p