Learning Alone

Not that act of learning, alone, but learning alone. Learning aloneness. It's an appreciably challenging skill, one that age neither coaxes nor stunts. We're told form an early age to eat with others, see movies with others, walk with others, live with others, our entire education through college is in class rooms and cafeterias with others, but then when you have to do something alone, there is no learning, just the discomfort. Eat at a packed restaurant, table for one, the hostess asks you twice, have to confirm that someone, anyone, would eat at a restaurant by themselves, there are no tables with just one chair. The sharing economy makes some thing easier alone, you can get from place to place alone easier, and thanks to technology you can use an elongated rod to make it look like someone is holding the camera that is taking your picture, you don't want all of your pictures on social media to show you're alone, you have friends you do things with, you eat with, you walk with, you're not truly alone, nobody is, and pity the poor soul who is.