Hacker News

Highly recommend this book on the subject: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99746.An_Island_to_Onese... (An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale). The guy spent years on an island in the middle of the pacific all alone (almost, he has pets and animals).

On the subject, I'll say that voluntary solitude is amazing, loneliness sucks. However, the number of people you interact with has nothing to do with either.

What matters isn't the number of people you meet or the amount of human interaction you have, but the amount of intimacy you desire and how much of that is fulfilled. With that said, the road less traveled is always harsh, humans are social animals; fighting nature is a tumultuous affair.

Thomas Wake: "Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til' ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more - only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin' tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye - a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself - forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!"

Ephraim Winslow: "Alright, have it your way. I like your cookin'."

There is a concept of going into the wilderness for some time (as we go through Lent). It's ancient. I wonder if we'll ever find out it's just as useful as intermittent fasting.

Due to existing health concerns, I self isolated in my home from the start of the covid outbreak in 2020, until spring 2021 when the first vaccines became broadly available. I only recall leaving a handful of times to pick up medicine when delivery wasn't an option, but other than that, almost no venturing into the outside world other than the few steps on my front porch to grab deliveries and groceries.

I learned a lot about myself. I love being alone, more than most people, but after a few months I did start to feel I was going a bit crazy. This was made worse by the fact at that point in my life I had a big drop off in friend groups (mostly people getting married/moving/having kids/etc.) My health and hygiene definitely suffered. What was the tipping point for me, and I'm still unsure to this day, but I felt I was having auditory hallucinations (mostly hearing my name). I ended up joining a group video-chat app that pitched itself as unofficial group therapy, and things improved a lot. It was this way I learned I'm not actually an extreme introvert like my doctor liked to tell me I was, and consider myself far more extroverted than I used to since this experience. Since then I make an effort to socialize once a week even if I really don't feel like it.

For a real life complement to the film I would highly recommend this 1973 BBC documentary on life on Bishop Rock Lighthouse [0] and this modern day 2025 vlog of a lighthouse worker [1].

Sadly I did not see any mention of monkey pump in either of these, but I think they show nicely how lighthouse work self-selects for individuals who can handle (or even prefer) the solitude that comes with the job.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc9qxyf_suI

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhRbJ3DQdlQ

I assume days alone in tiny rooms are something different than days alone in a cozy cabin oder days alone in nature in general. Seems odd to me that the effects have been contributed to the missing social interactions alone and neglect the jail like setting.

Consider adding (2020) to the title. "The Lighthouse" is no longer Robert Eggers' most recent film.

>Psychologist Sarita Robinson at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, says that hallucinations are common when people are in isolation, usually occurring if there is also sensory deprivation, such as being in a dark room.

Does the AI model hallucinations somewhat linked to this, does computer AI model too need some sort of socializing?

(2020) Great film!

[dead]