Solitude is socialising with the universe
The world being built and the one doing the building — the same thing.
In many cultures, socialising is work. Or at least an important part of work. In cultures where socialising is not integrated with work, it is a set of activities that is carefully and deliberately segregated from anything that is work. Between these two broad trends lie cultures that employ several different combinations. If I draw a spectrum line, beyond these two trends, lie the outliers or extreme ends — total social or isolation. To be clear totally social approaches get work done just as totally isolated cultures are quite capable of communicating effectively with others.
I can be fit into many of these cultures. The easiest way to explain this are two of my nicknames: Bohurupiya and Chameleon. Bohurupiya is a Bengali word that means a person with many forms. Chameleon refers to a person who can change form and behaviour to adapt to surroundings. Chameleon was a slur used for me, while Bohurupiya was a label used by those who had given up trying to predict my behaviour.
I could explain it by saying socialising is something I do when I take a break from work. But that would be a part of the fact and only in work context.
It would be truer to say that by nature I am a solitary animal. (Some friends and a lot of my family call me Grizzly.) When I think about it I seem to be an animal in a human world since people have always been observing me, labelling me, trying to figure out when it is safe to engage with me, when I might play, most of the time I am by myself in their vicinity, pacing, frowning, and so on.
Socialising is something I do easily due to upbringing, training, habit and practice. I can do it endlessly but left to myself, I would enjoy interacting with others for small measures of time. Like 2 minutes, maybe 5. After that I get bored.
This is not unique to me. Most people have the same issue — they get bored, which is why in a social context we flit like butterflies.
In my mid-20s, I realised that work will always be hard and boring and thankless if I was doing it only for money or for someone else. And that to make work interesting, people took breaks (to talk to people, run little errands, eat, drink chai/coffee). Which in turn increased the work day. Eventually, I changed myself and made work out of everything that I loved doing instead of doing things that made more money. It changed my perspective on all work and I started doing all kinds of work because I took interest in the work itself. If you see my CV, you will notice that I don't have hobbies or interests … it's because whatever I am interested in, I start learning and doing and making it my work. In short, my life is about being occupied, and not about breaking occupation into categories, and then sorting them, and reorganising them and …
Which is why when I work, I am essentially playing. Have you ever seen a child who is playing? Companions are not essential to play. Conversation is what you have with the play and yourself and the environment. Try to pry a child at play away into conversation.
Which is my truest reality when it comes to socialising: I am a 2-5 year old at play.
Every now and then I get up from my sandbox after I have finished cobbling together whatever it was that I was making, and that is when I walk into the world, talking to everyone I meet, happy to be a part of the world, taking in the air, be delighted by whatever is interesting, everything is new … then I walk back to my play area to make something new or tinker with what I had made before.
Any time is a good time to focus on doing things.