A hotel room à Québec (#4)
I am in a hotel room in Quebec City. I am giving a workshop tomorrow morning. I don’t like being alone in a hotel room. For me, it feels like a gap of existence. I am away from people I am attached to, and I am not yet with people that give meaning to my presence here, my workshop’s attendees. It is a subjective no man’s land.
It reminds me of another situation. Some years ago I was alone in Amsterdam. I was scheduled for a short presentation at a conference held in Delft a few days later. In such circumstances, I love to discover towns by wandering through the streets (Exploration/Curiosity through the Seeking affective system which happens to be pretty strong in my case), and Amsterdam is quite engaging. But at some specific moment I had the following thought: here, nobody knows me. I could die and people would hardly notice – well, I would become a problem for the authorities (identification, finding whom to contact, doing something with the corpse, etc.). Apart from being this person wandering around, I have no significant existence to anybody, for the moment at least. That’s what I call an existential gap. The feeling of existence is strongly linked to relationships.
But while I am writing this I notice that my subjective state is changing. I feel less alone… I realize that I am writing to you, whoever you may be. That is probably an important reason for authors to write novels or essays, it’s an excellent way not to stay alone. I guess also (I have already heard it) that novelists may have relationships with their created characters, a relationship with their creative memory.
This week, I was reading the story of that young woman, Mylène Paquette, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Canada to France in a rowboat (more demanding than a night alone in a hotel room!). This is by itself an uncommon story. But I was intrigued by comments she made about her boat: even if she was very happy to be back home (on her arrival at Montréal airport), she was missing her boat that was still in France. From what I understand, she had developed a personal attachment to it (in the middle of her arrival night in France, she felt the urge to meet up with her boat). Do you remember the scene in Cast Away when Wilson is lost to the ocean? As many other members of the theater audience, I was tearful at the loss… of a volleyball! Connection is what we are wired for (in our brain).
From my point of view (and on this issue I am not alone), being connected to others is a very powerful motivational system, usually second to the survival system (threat-focused: panic – fear – anger). And it is the most potent on the positive side of the agreeable / disagreeable spectrum. Our threat-focused motivational system is linked to fight, flight, or freeze reactions while our attachment system induces approach responses. An approach meaning is more attractive than an avoidance meaning even if the last is usually more compelling (with eloquent exceptions: for example you could choose to suffer or even to die in order to save your child’s life).
OK, we are wired for connection. But coming back to my hotel story, my reaction is one among others. One colleague (she has young children) told me she enjoyed reading, or relaxing while watching TV in a hotel room – those nights are breaks from a very demanding life. Another colleague told me he didn’t feel anything negative about being alone; he is doing what he has to do (last look to his PowerPoint presentation), or simply enjoys other aspects of the situation (watching a hockey game on TV).
So, some people have no negative issue around being alone in a hotel room. As to me, it isn’t that bad, it is simply an unpleasant subjective state, a transient existential gap. But, there are also those frequent stories of travellers who simply can’t stay alone. They have to get into bars, have conversations with the barmaid or anyone willing to chat or cruise, have affairs, or pay for sexual encounters… getting connected by any means.
We know that long-term isolation is a very noxious state to most human beings; it may have significant impact on mental and physical health. But what about transient loneliness and their associated subjective sates, how could we understand individual differences around it?
In addition to context, I would point to two variables.
1) The temperament:
It is considered as the biological part of our character. Robert Cloninger is a very important researcher in the domain of temperament. He has identified four dimensions of temperament. For example, if you are high on the Reward Dependence dimension, other persons’ reactions to you are of primary importance (approval-seeking). In other respects, if you are high on the Novelty Seeking dimension, your interest for exciting activities may overshadow some potential risks (including relational) while doing so.
The way I translate this in the situation I described. I am high on those two dimensions. It is why I like giving workshops in different cities – I find that exciting. But, by doing so, I have those moments where there is no relational reward available (alone in a hotel room).
2) The attachment story:
Attachment theory is a very important theory in psychology and much research has been done on this model. It tells that the infant’s relationships with primary caregivers will strongly influence the way the adult will establish relationships with other people. The attachment will be secure or insecure (anxious, avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized). If your attachment is secure, you’ll more likely establish healthy relationships and cope more easily with transient aloneness. If your attachment is anxious, transient period of solitude may feel unpleasant, even panicky.
So our reaction to a specific situation, like being alone in a hotel room, will vary with the specific context (my hotel was far from city downtown where I like to wander around), with our lineage memory (genetics: temperament) and with our learning story (as summarized here in an attachment pattern).
Before closing that post, I would like to open a door to another room (metaphoric!). What I described in this little story pertains to the level of psychological reactions: feeling or not feeling alone, writing to potential readers, feeling compelled to go to a bar, reading a book, watching a hockey game, etc. Human beings have also the potential to become observers of their own experience. I may be enmeshed with my experience or I may witness my experience. Would it then be possible to take breaks from our usual way to construct our experience and to behave (breaks from our personality)? I’ll be back on this subject one day.
And I have to close my story… Finally, the workshop in Québec went well (I met interesting people and shared my passion for psychology) and I enjoyed my evening in the train while getting back home. My unpleasant feelings (not that bad anyway!) of last evening are now a fleeting memory.
pcousineau
pcousineau 