Instead of finding peace in solitude, we’re getting lonelier

It always made perfect sense to me that Superman’s Fortress of Solitude is located in a land of ice and snow.

If anyone understands solitude, it’s people whose weather forecasters routinely advise us to be hermits. During cold streaks, we northerners have been known to hole ourselves up inside for so long that we don’t see anyone but the pizza delivery guy for weeks.

Superman’s man cave is located in the Arctic, in an unspecified locale.

However the Fortress of Solitude always struck me as Canadian, somehow. Maybe because in the movies, its crystals jut out of the corners of the screen and resemble Lawren Harris’s icy blue landscape paintings.

Harris, a founder of The Group of Seven, honed a style that came to typify Canadian art. His paintings are an expression of “modernist-romantic solitude,” according to a recent review.

Early on, the idea of solitude crept its way into our social imaginary, a term philosopher Charles Taylor uses to describe the way people imagine their social life. The idea is embedded in our myths and stories about lone explorers, voyageurs and adventurers: men who wrestle with isolation and then reap its rewards.

Solitude is the opposite of loneliness. It is the state of being alone, without being lonely; it projects a form of strength.

Loneliness, on the other hand, is often looked down upon as weakness. It is a feeling brought about by a need for and a failure to connect with others. And it has reached epidemic proportions in the Western world, according to many recent headlines.

Some psychologists see loneliness as a public health risk that should be treated in the same way as obesity or smoking. Research has shown that social isolation contributes to mortality in the same way smoking 15 cigarettes a day does.

But why are we feeling lonely, instead of finding peace in solitude?

It may have something to do with recent cultural shifts. Like many people, I have a cellphone that is permanently attached to my hand. This new appendage seems to have increased my sense of loneliness and neediness, and at the same time, it’s made solitude seem like a dream from another era.

Most of the time, I use my phone to scroll on Facebook. I do this mindlessly, the way I used to smoke cigarettes. Sure, I could turn my phone off and not get texts, emails and notifications, and also cease to worry about how my latest Facebook post or too quickly typed email has been received — and achieve a state of contemplative solitude.

But what if I ditched my phone on a day when a loved one needed my help? Disconnecting feels like a selfish choice, one that no longer really seems possible.

It’s not surprising that man caves and “she sheds,” their female equivalent, are becoming increasingly popular. We’ve begun to locate our fortresses of solitude within our private dwellings, in an effort to find a measure of solitude without entirely disconnecting.

In my mind’s eye, solitude conjures up something slightly ominous, like a vast, monotonous stretch of white land, but also something peaceful and beautiful, like sparkly snow. It feels like something precious we have lost.