Shortly after lockdown I started thinking about Carlos Slim. Until recently he was the richest person in the world (and is currently fifth richest). He was asked to explain why he built gigantic supermarkets all over Mexico that put thousands of small shop owners out of business, and then devoted large amounts of the resulting wealth to help budding entrepreneurs do things like open small shops. He paused and then explained: “People are complicated.”

I find it especially complicated being both a highly social, outgoing person and also an introvert. Until a few years ago I didn’t know I was an introvert; I just thought I was a bit odd. Introverts are generally not anti-social, they just need a great deal of time alone to recharge, and they greatly prefer small social groups to large. My complication is having both traits in a rather extreme form, and guess which has always won out? My drive to organize and participate in all manner of social groups and activities has always been great fun; yet this full and enjoyable social life, running around town every which way, squeezed my solitary time to oblivion. I regularly found the disquieting and strange thought popping up: I could be happier than this.

Come mid-March I suddenly found myself with all the peace and quiet a person could possibly imagine. Day after day, week after week, and now month after month, I have hardly left the house or garden, except for daily exercise, and may have forgotten how to drive. This is serious recharging. The swing from social hyperactivity to mostly silence has produced great contentment. I get to do all my work and volunteering and house and garden activities from home without interruption, day after day after day, and we have even introduced something we could never squeeze into our old hyperactive lives: television watching. Now I understand why people do that – it really is enjoyable if you choose well.

But all this is a strangely uncomfortable kind of contentment, because I badly miss my friends and social activities. Carlos Slim would understand, but he isn’t here to discuss the matter. It is complicated, and it needs some explaining.

I like to explain things by first choosing a frame of reference. One frame that fits: how do you resolve a contradiction? My contradiction is the drive for excessive albeit fulfilling social life that exists simultaneously with a craving for extended periods of solitude – and not just half an hour here or there.

Perhaps the least helpful way to resolve a contraction is to follow Aristotle’s logical dictum that something can’t be A and not-A at the same time. If two things contradict they can’t both be right, so you must choose one or the other. My default was to always choose sociability – it was appealing, never required saying no, and I just had to live with the consequences of behaving like an extrovert.

In lockdown I was forced to suddenly flip from one pole to the other, and for the first few months I basked in the solitude, while wondering what this could mean. Was I meant to be a recluse but just didn’t know it? Luckily I live with someone with more common sense than I, and she laughed at my thought that perhaps I was meant to be a hermit. I realize now with the passing of time that I have undergone a period of healing. Like a sleep deprived person, I had built up a backlog of unrequited solitude. I now feel caught up and ready to live in a better balance.

Ah, balance. There’s a word that doesn’t resonate. I am just not a balanced person; I prefer extremes. Yet a second and better way to resolve a contradiction is not to choose between the contradictory, opposing poles, but to find a balance between them. How to achieve such a thing?

The first thing is to try to know myself better. How much solitude is needed to banish that recurring thought: I could be happier than this. For the first time in my life I am nudging towards a realistic answer, and suffice to say it involves a great deal more alone time than I have allowed myself in the past.

A second aspect is that this will require purposeful attention when restrictions on gathering are finally lifted. I can’t go back to just saying yes to everything. It has become crystal clear what I miss and what I don’t miss that much. What I miss the most is everything revolving around CBB and the amazing friends I have made since joining the CBB community. Some other activities I will be happy to do without, and I’ve already succeeded in saying no to the Zoom versions. There is only so much time.

While this may all seem rather obvious to my more balanced friends, to me it has been a revelatory period – a wake up call. But one aspect of these months of contentment is more troubling, too troubling to know how to address in this short piece: how can I feel so contented by the enforced retreat caused by the pandemic when so many millions are experiencing untold suffering of all kinds – illness and bereavement, economic dislocation, mental ill health – from the same pandemic? The Talmud speaks to this (Tractate Taanit, page 11a, since you ask) regarding Moses’ leadership during a war with the Amalekites:

When the community is immersed in suffering, a person may not say: I will go to my home and I will eat and drink, and peace be upon you, my soul . . . Rather, a person should be distressed together with the community. As we found with Moses our teacher … during the war with Amalek … Moses said as follows: Since the Jewish people are immersed in suffering, I too will be with them in suffering, as much as I am able, although I am not participating in the fighting. A baraita adds: Anyone who is distressed together with the community will merit seeing the consolation of the community.

Hmm. How, then, to not feel contented? Perhaps some Rabbinic enlightenment may be forthcoming.

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Nick Woolf has lived in Santa Barbara for about 20 years with his wonderful wife Sara. He is chair of the CBB Caring Community, and recently joined the CBB Board of Trustees. Nick is semi-retired, working part time as a qualitative research consultant.