All by myself

This past summer I spent four straight months in London. And while I knew a couple of people there, took weekend trips to other European cities to visit Duke friends, and made plenty of new London acquaintances (there is a pub culture in the United Kingdom that is really quite wonderful), I nonetheless spent a great deal of time by myself. I lived alone in a single-room flat, explored London alone during the post-work-day evenings, and even spontaneously (some of my friends think embarrassingly) toured Madame Tussauds alone, constructing a whole Facebook photo album of myself posing awesomely (or awkwardly) with wax figures. I did my best to keep off Facebook and Google chat, and I rarely spoke on the phone. I was as alone during this summer as I’ve ever been during any summer. And I found it incredibly rewarding.

Though I am, at least according to the Myers-Brigg test, an extrovert, I place a very high value on alone time. By this I don’t mean sitting in a chair by myself, staring off into space and thinking—though that would certainly qualify. Rather, I mean taking time out to reflect and recharge by watching TV, reading, running, writing or doing any number of activities. The value I place in this is possibly an ingrained result of past experience. Years ago when undergoing chemotherapy treatment, there were long spans of time—sometimes months—when I was homebound or hospital-bound. Back then I watched the morning trifecta of “Ellen,” “Regis” and “The Price is Right” followed by reading a good set of books. Today in college I’ve worked my way through “The Wire,” “Breaking Bad” and “Frasier” and have added comic books to the mix (though I usually read new-releases on my iPad—the Duke Special Collections has a truly phenomenal collection of old comic books that I would highly recommend).

I’ve found that in Duke college life, there is a tremendous emphasis placed, sometimes explicitly but oftentimes implicitly, on certain existential questions. Laurie Patton, dean of arts and sciences, has encouraged students this year to “find their question”—a question that might not ever be answered, but that nonetheless drives a student’s pursuits in life. Professors, administrators and fellow students love to tell us to do such things as “follow your dreams” and “think differently” and “define thyself.” Many of my columns explicitly deal with these concepts, and I do not highlight such existential queries to diminish their significance. Rather, I’d like to point out that these questions cry out for introspection and reflection. They cry out for time spent alone.

But while I’ve found there is a tremendous emphasis placed on existential examination in Duke college life, there is also a counterintuitive and paradoxical pressure to constantly spend time with other people. We study together, eat together and constantly share everything with each other on Facebook and Twitter. Plenty of students on campus excel at being in the know and constantly involved with their name out there. Our rush process in many ways favors extroverts over introverts. People rarely talk about the nights they spend alone in their rooms watching movies or reading books, and if they do it’s usually in a self-deprecating way. Taken too far, this mindset can erode our ability to answer the questions we all have been challenged to answer.

To be clear, I am not saying that being social and spending time with others is intrinsically bad. To possibly state the completely obvious, spending large amounts of time with an incredibly diverse student body is one of the single best things one can do in college. Friendships are formed, points of view discussed, experiences shared, social skills garnered, ideas formulated. I am also not saying that one can’t learn about oneself by spending time with other people. Certainly a student whittles away at the existential questions posed to him or her by virtue of interaction with fellow students.

But I do not think one can answer any of life’s important questions without taking significant time out to reflect and soul-search. And again, I would say that in many ways our campus culture and generational inter-connectivity could put up some barriers in one’s path to doing this. I think this is a danger we should all avoid.

In closing, I’ll say that the first drafts of my columns are never written on a computer. Funny as it might be to imagine, I write most of my columns in my head as I run, usually while listening to Eminem. Though my writing is published for all to see, the process by which these columns are formulated is inherently an introspective one. This is my last column of the year, and I can say that this reflective process has been one of the single most rewarding aspects of my college career. I oxymoronically invite you all to join me in spending more time alone.

Daniel Strunk is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Thursday.