SOLITUDE
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| Ranch mailbox near Farson, Wyoming. 1941. Photograph by Marion Post Wolcott. |
Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since.
Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude” 1854
The first season of The Twilight Zone contained thirty-six episodes, all airing from October 1959 to July 1960. The seventh episode in that first season is called “The Lonely.” It’s about a man convicted of murder who is sentenced to 50 years of solitary confinement. However, to make his confinement truly solitary, he is stranded on a distant asteroid. The opening narration, in great Twilight Zone fashion, really hammers down the theme of the episode—loneliness—while we see the convict living in what is essentially a desert shack. We then see a rocket landing in the distance and, through helpful voice over, we learn the rocket is carrying some Earthlings that visit four times a year to give the prisoner supplies. The prisoner—his name is James Corry—demonstrates the damaging effects of his isolation by reacting to these men like clingy fanboy, geeking out and sweatily inviting them to play a game of checkers or cards. Alas, they cannot stay, but they do leave him a large crate.
Despondent, Corry joylessly opens the crate. Inside, there is a robot woman named Alicia, because of course there is. Not only is Alicia a robot who looks like a human in every way, she’s an oddly attractive human, with a lithe frame, a trim little shirt dress, and full hair and makeup.
To the modern viewer who’s seen even the trailer to the first season of Westworld, the mind fills in all the lecherous gaps of where this story could (but of course will not) go. However, what is most shocking about this 1959 version of the sexy robot story is how long it takes Corry to fall in love with her.
At first, he’s straight up abusive to her, verbally and physically. He calls her “a lie” who “mocks” him by her mere presence. Then, when she tells him that he hurt her by swatting away her hand, he grabs her roughly by the arm and throws her to rocky desert ground. He can’t wrap his 1959 brain around the idea of a synthetic human. And when you watch him bitch and whine and monologue against her in their first scene together, you can feel in your human heart the sixty-plus years of sci-fi story practice we have all gotten that has made us probably too comfortable with the idea of our inevitable robot companions.
In the next scene, he tells us that eleven months have passed and he’s still on the fence with how he feels about her. But he is thinking that maybe, possibly, it's something like love.
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Sometimes when I talk to people about solitude, I use the terms “first person camera” and “third person camera” to describe my orientation to myself when I am by myself. It’s not the best terminology because I think it’s misleading, so allow me to explain. The “first person camera” might best be described as goal-focused and engaged. I’m looking through my own eyes and whatever I’m looking at and the contents of my thoughts are on the process I’m engaged in. If I were to “compare myself to other men” like Thoreau does (although I think it’s best not to do anything Thoreau does) I would say that this “first person camera” is how most people are most of the time.
The “third person camera” is not necessarily a self-conscious or self-absorbed perspective. It is merely a quiet observing of oneself in one's surroundings in a specific moment of rest. It’s looking around and taking in the quality of light, the space of the scene, one's place in it, the sounds and slight movements. I suspect it must be what it’s like to be a cinematographer, always framing the world and looking for what’s visually appealing and communicative. There’s a meditative quality to the third-person camera and an invitation of gratitude in it. There is also something about it that is, by its very nature, very solitary. Even if I flip to the third person camera when I’m around people, I can’t quite share my findings with anyone in any comprehensive way. It’s just a little zoom out switch in my brain that gives me a little warm buzz of something.
Here's another piece of terminology. I sometimes describe living as a social creature with the word "performance." Some people bristle at that terminology, finding the phrasing a little sociopathic, but I like it. We put on shows for each other—they can be deeply felt and authentic shows—but they are shows nonetheless. We speak and move and make faces to get across what’s in our head and our heart. It’s gratifying to have an audience to perform for, especially when they enjoy what they see and are able to perform back.
And then, at certain times and for certain people, it’s exhausting to have an audience to perform for. With this analogy, I wonder if the switch from solitude to loneliness is the switch from not wanting an audience to wanting one. Moreover, I wonder if my “third person camera” is a way to make myself my own audience in order to maintain those solitude vibes and keep away the specter of loneliness.
Thoreau had his own “third person camera” and used it to write essays that were really just self-aggrandizing diary entries, a kind of 19th Century homesteader vlog. He didn’t avoid loneliness because he had found friendship in nature, he avoided loneliness because he always had the warm glow of his future readers to keep him company, readers who would swoon over how authentic he was. He was performing for them, both in his real life on the pond and in his depiction of that life on the page (two realities that those who care suspect were fairly different).
I’m critical of Thoreau firstly because he’s a fun guy to hate on, and secondly because I might be doing the same thing he is: jotting down introspective musings and making some future reader a type of companion, a “third-person camera” to see me and make me feel seen. Having an imaginary audience member serve as a “third-person camera” is a pretty good scam because you don’t have to actually converse with them. You’re in total control of the dialogue. It’s a one sided performance. All the thrills of companionship but none of the mess.
But this line of thinking gets complicated when I think about Alicia. Why would I not hesitate to treat Alicia like an actual human being? Is it just because I’ve seen lots of sentient robot movies? I don’t think so. I would just look at Alicia and see another performance partner/audience member. Another thinking, talking, feeling thing to engage with. I don’t think I would care what was behind those eyes if those eyes were doing something that I could call “seeing” and what they were seeing was me.
There’s something similar about Alicia and the imagined future reader that Thoreau and all of his insufferable artistic descendants (myself included) write for. It may not technically be an actual person, but who cares? Especially if the feeling hits home. This seems to me the story behind solitude. Zoom that camera out and make yourself your own rapt audience. Or maybe make something for a future audience about how it feels to be alone. It’ll make you feel like someone’s right here with you, in your late afternoon sunlit apartment, golden beams streaking the walls, your houseplants swaying in the breeze drifting through the open window. They are looking over your shoulder, this audience of yours. Reading your words, nodding in recognition, their cool breath right by your ear.
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The big lesson with Rod Sterling’s Corry and Alicia story is unveiled after one of those delivery Earthlings comes back to tell Corry that he’s been given a full pardon. He gets to go home, but they have to leave now and Corry can only take 15 pounds of stuff with him. When Corry freaks out and tries to convince them that Alicia is just as human as anyone and deserves a spot on the rocket, the head delivery guy who’s been advocating for Corry all along says, “I don’t have any choice,” and then he, shockingly, shoots Alicia dead. Corry just stares down at her body, with a relatively blank expression. The camera shows us Alicia’s elegant feet, her dainty ankles, her hairless legs, and then slowly pans across her entire body to reveal that her face is now just a hole, exposing a sparking collection of wires and circuits. Correy responds to this gruesome image like someone pulled out of a delusion, immediately realizing the emptiness of his deeply-held feelings.
The head delivery guy tells Corry that they have to go home, that “all [he] is leaving behind is loneliness.”
Corry, and the writers and viewers for that matter, seem to agree. Corry cooly responds, “I must remember that. I must remember to keep that in mind.”
“How strange!” that 1959 audience must have thought to themselves. “How wild that a man could believe he is in love with a machine? How foolish humans can be? How easily can we be tricked when we are desperate? How inventive our mind must be to convince us, when confronted with a mirage that keeps us from madness and despair, that we are looking at the real thing.”
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References:
"Jean Marsh and Jack Warden in The Twilight Zone". 1959. Internet Movie Database. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0734656/mediaviewer/rm3304143872/.Accessed 30 July 2023.
The Lonely.” The Twilight Zone, created by Rod Sterling, Season 1, Episode 7, Cayuga Productions, Inc. and CBS Productions, 1959.
Thoreau, Henry David. Solitude. Walden. 1854. https://commons.digitalthoreau.org/walden/solitude/. Accessed 30 July 2023.
Walcott, Marian Post. "Ranch mailbox near Farson, Wyoming." 1941. Photograph, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8c15879/. Accessed 30 July 2023.