Loneliness
Benefits

Chronic loneliness is often seen as a purely negative phenomena from the lens of social and medical science. Yet in spiritual and artistic traditions, it has been viewed as having mixed effects. Though even within these traditions, there can be warnings not to intentionally seek out chronic loneliness or other conditions – just advise that if one falls into them, there can be benefits. In western arts, there is a long belief that psychological hardship, including loneliness, can be a source of creativity. In spiritual traditions, perhaps the most obvious benefit of loneliness is that it can increase the desire for a union with the divine. More esoterically, the psychic wound opened up by loneliness or other conditions has been said, e.g. by Simone Weil, to open up space for God to manifest within the soul. In Christianity, spiritual dryness has been seen as advantageous as part of the "dark night of the soul", an ordeal that while painful, can result in spiritual transformation. From a secular perspective, while the vast majority of empirical studies focus on the negative effects of long term loneliness, a few studies have found there can also be benefits, such as enhanced perceptiveness of social situations.
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