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Abstract

The present article is a reflection on solitude, perceived as human fundamental experience related to the nature of being, i.e. ontologically, and understood as a certain mode of existence, i.e. ontically. Ontological solitude is expressed in “limit situations”, such as birth, pain, or death. Ontic solitude results from certain personality characteristics and social conditions of the subject; of those some are discussed in the article. The author recalls certain philosophical ideas, especially those of existentialism, which is particularly a philosophy of solitude (J.P Sartre, S. Kierkegaard, M. Heidegger, and others). Ontological solitude is the very nature of human existence, thus it is impossible to fight it, yet ontically we can create our existence and avoid situations that generate painful solitude and destructive feelings of abandonment and isolation. However, it also happens that solitude becomes an asylum, a consciously chosen refuge from the noisy, chaotic world, especially in the today’s “tough”, or even cruel reality of commercialism, consumption, and violence. Such “chosen” solitude may be connected with sadness and nostalgia, but never becomes the despair that is usually experienced in the “unwanted” solitude, to which we are forced, against our will, by a given existential situation. The “chosen” solitude is, in a way, rational self-knowledge, and thus it frequently becomes the source of invention and creation.