State of the Human: Solitude

Stories about being alone, wanting to be alone, or feeling alone. What is that place we go to to protect ourselves? How and why achieve seclusion?

Transcript for Solitude (Full Episode)

Adesuwa Agbonile: [00:00:00] When I was younger, I loved being alone. I come from a small family, and I used to spend whole days just caged up in my room, alone. And I would lie in the space underneath my bed with my blankets, just burrowing inside of myself.

My mom is a hardened extrovert, and she would march into my room and be like, "You've been alone all day!"

Like, being alone was this bad thing. But when I was younger, burrowing was like this cathartic, peaceful experience. And I would spend whole days just circling in and out of my thoughts. I would solve problems in my head, like what to say to that boy or what to write in the next chapter of the book that I was never gonna finish.

Leaving home and moving to this big college campus was really jarring because all of a sudden, I was surrounded by people. You know, in between classes, I would like duck and weave my bike around them. I would sit shoulder to shoulder with them during lecture, and I would eat almost every single meal with another person.

There's no more alone.

This is State of the Human, the podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project. Each episode, we take a common human experience, like survival or speculation, and bring you stories that explore and deepen our understanding of that experience.

I am Adesuwa Agbonile. Today's episode, Solitude. We're gonna take you deep into the experience, with stories about what it's for, why some of us avoid it, or, if you're like me, crave it, and what it teaches [00:02:00] us.

Is solitude necessary? And if so, why?

What do we gain from shutting everyone else out and settling into our aloneness?

I am walking out to Lake Lag. "Lake" is something of a misnomer. It used to be a lake, but it's more like a grassland. And as I'm walking towards the center, I feel myself getting further and further away from classrooms and dorms, and...

Ryan Petterson was very alone when he did his PhD research. He lived for three months in the middle of the desert. What happens when you're forced to be alone?

Ryan Petterson: You drive up into the mountains, take another little side road, another little side road. You get there when the road ends, and you put in and park and get out.

When I got out there, it was nice, so I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. I had lost track on the map. I, I really had no idea where I was.

There's really nothing in front of you but the desert.

The field work that I was doing in Death Valley was part of my PhD research. Um, I was studying essentially earth history and studying a certain period of earth history that's recorded in the rocks in Death Valley. And so I was essentially wandering around aimlessly by myself, banging my head against rocks.

I realized, oh crap, what did I get myself into? Um, and it wasn't until the sun came up the next morning that I pulled out my map and started looking around and trying to figure out where I had ended up. Waking up, [00:04:00] starting to hike up the hill, I've got my backpack on and my maps, and I'm starting to look at rocks and thinking about stuff.

And, um, and all of a sudden I, I had to use the bathroom. You know, it's morning, I had my cup of coffee and now it's time to use the bathroom. And I start looking for a bush to hide behind to use restroom, and all of a sudden it occurs to me there's not another human for like 400 miles, like I don't need to find a bush-- I got six mountain ranges in between me and the nearest person.

You realize how much of what you do is based on the people around you. And then trying to figure out, okay, well what do I do when there is nobody around? Who am I outside of the context of the rest of the world?

I maybe saw one or two people out actually in, out on the rocks, but those usually worry me. Anybody that's out there is either trying to scoop my science, or they're crazy, or both. But I do often talk to the rocks. Usually I, I yell at them, I scream at them 'cause they're confusing, and I get mad and I kick dirt on 'em.

You know, you become convinced that kicking dirt on, on a rock is like the worst thing ever. 'cause they've spent the last billion and a half years trying to get out of the ground and all of a sudden you kick dirt on 'em and they're covered again. That must be horrible for rocks. At least that's what you convince yourself of.

You get attached to whatever little thing is out there. I think in contrast to something like a jungle, where there's 10,000 things that that are going on and another 10,000 that will kill you, and it's all exotic and snakes and insects. The desert doesn't have that. The desert has a sort of stoic inevitability.

Eventually you'll die simply because you will, you'll run outta water and you'll die. It's patient. It's not boastful. It's just, it knows what it is, and that's that. Take it or leave it.

I do love being out in the middle of nowhere, [00:06:00] but it is also lonely. Usually though it's lonely, not-- well, not during the day.

It's lonely at night. That's when it gets lonely, when it's just you staring at the stars. Wondering about the universe. I find stars really depressing. Staring at all those stars and, and just kind of being reminded of the vastest of the universe that I'll never see.

I brought back balloons, lots of them, 434 of them. Apparently, that's where balloons go to die. I found a lot of balloons. Everything from your normal, you know, latex party balloons, three weather balloons. Um, my favorite balloon that I ever found in the desert had a note tied to it and this little note said, um, in, in kid scrawl, "D-R-[space]-G-S-E-S," and then had some letter that I couldn't read, and then was signed Scott.

Clearly some kid named Scott who could write his own name, but not really anything else. He'd written this letter and put it on a balloon and sent it up to, up to the sky. And it took me a long, long time... "d-R-[space]-G-S-E-S," "Dr. Gu-sus"... Finally, I got it. "Dear Jesus," and it made me think that some little kid wrote a letter to Jesus, sent it up into the sky, and it ended up with me.

I don't know that I could really sum up what I, what I discovered in the desert. You know, I could say, "Well, I found myself." Well, yeah. Yes. Sort of. I don't know.

Adesuwa Agbonile: That was Ryan Petterson. This story was produced by Sofia Sanchez-Luege.

This episode is about being [00:08:00] alone, and right now, I think I am. I've made it to the middle of Lake Lag, and the sun is setting. It's very still. Serene.

There's so few distractions. I just have to be with myself.

Our next story is about a recent Stanford graduate who took a deep dive into forms of solitude that more and more people are trying out: meditation.

This solitude takes her places she never imagined.

Charlotte Brown: I'm just chuckling because, uh, my best, best friend from, uh, who I met in the villages, just texted me. WhatsApp is a great thing. 

Stephanie Niu: This is Charlotte Brown. She's a product manager in the Bay Area who's really into meditation. The village she's talking about is a small mountain town in the central Himalayas where she lived for a year.

Charlotte Brown: The town was called Anjanisain. It's in the state of Uttarakhand, which is a, yeah, the northernmost state in India.

Stephanie Niu: Charlotte was with this program called the Clinton Fellowship, which is modeled after the Peace Corps. She was there for about 10 months volunteering in maternal health and also working in a spiritual school.

Charlotte Brown: I lived in the central Himalayas, which, um, there are pronounced Himah-lee-yaah, and it was a very small town, and it's, uh, very steep hillsides. The towns are, are kind of terraced. You could see what people really think of as the Himalayas, which are these huge 26,000 plus peaks of snow and glacier and rock.

You know, in the nighttime, all the, [00:10:00] the hillsides light up with, um, the, the lights of all the villages. So it kind of feels like there's constellations on the hills and constellations in the sky.

Stephanie Niu: At first, it was overwhelming in a lot of ways. The main way was that she didn't speak the language. So very basic things were challenging for her. She realized she had to have a lot of trust in the community. 

Charlotte Brown: My first few months, I really couldn't communicate, and so I was very reliant both on myself and on the community in really interesting ways.

I had to be very, very trusting of people who were helping me, and I couldn't ask for what I needed, but I would motion or they would just grab my hand and take me somewhere 'cause they intuited I needed something and I would just follow. I remember being so, so grateful that I had spent two months in silent retreat earlier that year because I think I would've, um, I would've panicked, had I not had a really strong, grounded foundation, just in my own mind and in myself. 

Stephanie Niu: So one thing we haven't mentioned yet is that before this, Charlotte spent a lot of time practicing meditation.

She had some surgeries and took some time off school, and meditation was the thing that got her through those times in ways that other things hadn't.

It prepared her for India. 

Charlotte Brown: I remember also just being so uncomfortable, and, you know, doubting my sitting posture because I can't sit cross-legged 'cause I'm very inflexible. You're asked not to read or listen to music. You are asked to keep a downward gaze of your eyes, so you're not gonna, you make, you're making eyes with people.

Stephanie Niu: The retreat was at a meditation hall called Spirit Rock in the California countryside. Her day was spent between walking and seated meditation. [00:12:00] 

Charlotte Brown: And I remember seated meditation, when feeling painful, sensations and discomfort, realizing that it was just a sensation. And that was a really, a really profound moment for me to understand that, you know, this, this is a sensation, and I was experiencing it and I was experiencing my reaction to the sensation as well. And that reaction was where a lot of the suffering is.

And I came out of that retreat in a state I'd never felt of true groundedness-- um, real, open vulnerability that didn't feel scary. Vulnerability had felt scary to me before. And just thinking, "Oh wow, you know, this is-- this is it."

In Zen, there's this idea of little awakenings and big awakenings, and I can remember lots of little awakenings, just things suddenly feeling more clear or having a, a true experience of your mind, just a kind of unfettered, like you're able to be an economist witness to your experience.

You're trying to cultivate the ability to be your own witness, and that's an incredibly generous thing to do for yourself.

It takes practice, and I think silence is the condition that supports, uh, that development. Silence is, is a really beneficial condition to developing, um, powers of observation, um, intimacy and authenticity. 

Stephanie Niu: During her Clinton fellowship, Charlotte was still adjusting to living in India, but she found out that she and her community had one thing in common: they meditated. For a lot of them, she didn't even know their names, but [00:14:00] she'd sit in silence with them. 

Charlotte Brown: The first community that I lived with practiced theravada in meditation. And so, it was very sweet that every day in the morning and in the evening, we sat in meditation for an hour together. And that felt very familiar and very safe, and I felt very bonded.

Sitting in meditation with people is a very bonding thing, and so even though I couldn't communicate at the end of meditation, kind of everyone smiles at each other and, and heads off to their day or night, and, and, uh, there's a shared understanding there. 

Stephanie Niu: Despite this shared practice, there were still certain things that Charlotte was adjusting to.

This became pretty clear when she got sick. 

Charlotte Brown: First time I, I got sick while there, I had a, a pretty bad fever. And it was a really bad sinus infection, and it, it was getting to the point where my mucus was extremely colorful, just kind of gross, but usually indicates that it's a bad infection. Um, and I couldn't find tissues and a lot of people kind of like empty their nose into the bushes.

So it was kind of doing that, but it was a-- there's just a lot. 

Stephanie Niu: She knew that the nearest hospital was hours away, so she thought the best thing to do was just whatever the villagers were doing. 

Charlotte Brown: You know, they were telling me that I should gargle cow urine, and/ or my own urine to make myself better. And I just felt very uncomfortable doing that.

So I, I, I didn't comply with that suggestion. Uh, and then eventually someone said, well, why don't you just go get some antibiotics? And this was after about 10 days. It's like, "You have antibiotics?!" I just had no idea. And took it and immediately started getting better. 

Stephanie Niu: Over and over again, she found herself realizing that certain assumptions she had about the [00:16:00] village community-- about what resources they had, about what people valued-- were wrong. And realizing these assumptions were wrong, made her life a lot easier.

Charlotte Brown: There was just many occasions like this, where it was, it felt so exasperating just getting really simple things that they had and I didn't know that they had. And I, and I would always make the assumption that they didn't have it because they actually did have very little. Being able to have meditation as a time to feel like a balm on my strong emotions and create a little bit more space and distance, so that when I came out of meditation I could, I could reflect less reactively about some of the things that I was coming up against. 

Stephanie Niu: Having this balm in a new environment ended up being really important. There was one experience in particular that really tested her. 

Charlotte Brown: There was a very young child who had, uh, diarrhea, and he was already malnourished. 

Stephanie Niu: Since Charlotte lived near the clinic, a community health worker called and asked her to check on the child.

Charlotte Brown: And it was in late spring, so it was very warm and kinda dimming light on on the hillside. And I remember walking into the hospital room, and a very young mother looked like a ghost, just absolutely terrified, and looked extremely confused about what was going on. And in her arms was this very small 4-year-old who was making these really distressing squawks, obviously in a lot of pain.

Stephanie Niu: It was a Sunday afternoon, and the clinic was almost entirely empty. 

Charlotte Brown: My first thought was like, "Whoa, this is, this is what death looks like." They, they were questioning whether [00:18:00] or not to call the ambulance, which would take about four hours to come up into the mountains. Maybe six hours actually back to the hospital.

They were basically saying, you know, this child's not gonna make it 10 hours, and so it's not really worth it. The family was really, didn't want the child to be taken to the hospital because they couldn't afford to come back. They're very-- so they were like, you know, this is God's-- God has said, this is the time, I think we've gotta call it.

And um, I remember being very upset because the, the family elder who was saying this was very drunk. And then I noticed that actually the I-- the IV they put in hadn't, they hadn't put it in correctly. So the child had been there for an hour, but it hadn't even been getting the fluids. I asked for the nurse's attention and asked her to fix the IV, which she did.

He was kind of taking his final breaths, and so he didn't, he didn't survive. 

Stephanie Niu: It took Charlotte some time to process what she had witnessed. Part of that process was reaching out to her meditation teachers. 

Charlotte Brown: There's a phrase commonly used in Buddhism called "the wisdom of no escape." And a lot of suffering comes from the resistance to the present moment-- the resistance, resistance to something you're experiencing. The aversion to it, uh, the desiring for it to be a different way.

Seeing just how differently even life and death can be held was, um, really informative and made me realize that, you know, the way I held life and death was in fact a belief system and that it was malleable.

I could change that if I wanted, and I, I decided I didn't want to, but I feel really strongly that I was able to, um, [00:20:00] engage with a lot of the, the extremely difficult things that I was seeing.

Buddhism is just teaching profound okayness. Then when you start to experience really hard things on retreat, or out of retreat, and you come up against something that's really challenging to stay with-- uh, some, a reality that you don't want to be the case, something you don't wanna see, um, a sadness, a, something that makes you angry-- and the more willing you are to stay with it, and the more you can engage with it skillfully, you, instead of reacting to it, you can respond to it. Solitude has really given me the opportunity to develop that willingness, to show up and stay present. 

Stephanie Niu: Charlotte's life looks pretty different now as a product manager for a tech company in the Bay Area, but she tries to keep a daily meditation routine.

Even something as simple as going to the grocery store gives her a chance to practice mindfulness. 

Charlotte Brown: I, I like to think of, um, you know, everyone has spontaneous moments of mindfulness. And how does one encourage yourself to have more spontaneous moments? You know, like what's that moment when you come back and you're like, "Oh yeah, this is what's happening," or, "Oh, I'm aware of what's happening."

Stephanie Niu: One thing she's found is that it doesn't take two months of silence or a year living in India to have a moment of mindfulness. It can happen at any time.

Charlotte Brown: For those spontaneous moments, they're often very, very frequently triggered by suffering. So you'll be in Berkeley Bowl and, uh, shopping hungry, which is a terrible idea.

So you're hungry, like, and [00:22:00] you're a little too warm because it's winter, and you're a little overdressed inside. And there's a lot of people around and there's a really, you know, someone's taking forever, picking out their satsumas. But you wanna pick some satsumas. And then there's just this moment where you realize that you're just completely wrapped up in your own suffering that you've just created.

You've conjured in your own mind. And uh, for me, I usually try and at that point, feel my feet on the ground.

Usually a lot of the whatever it was that was going on in my mind, uh, spontaneously will let go at that moment, you know, I'll no longer feel angry at someone for taking the time to pick the satsumas they want to pick, which is what I was about to do.

What's nice about mindfulness is it often does the letting go for you. So as long as you can kind of encourage the practice to be present in your life, you tend to have more and more spontaneous moments, and, and those are really great. That's kind of what the practice is about.

Adesuwa Agbonile: That story was produced by Stephanie Niu.

I can hear the leaves of the trees rusting above me, and there are birds in the branches. I can hear them moving around and squawking. So I'm not completely alone, but I don't think that we're gonna be having a particularly interesting conversation. When I'm standing, I can see the tops of the buildings on campus, but when I sit, the grass is tall enough that it's all I can see. For all I know, it could just be me and the earth.

It makes me wonder: if I was out here for hours or days, what would I hear? What does perfect aloneness sound [00:24:00] like?

Gordon Hempton: This is Gordon Hempton. I'm speaking to you from my home in Joyce, Washington. It's hard to imagine that a sound can transform someone's life, um, but it certainly did mine.

Let's listen to a recording that I made, uh, years ago because it's very close to the sound experience, which changed everything.

I was making a long drive from Seattle, Washington to Madison, Wisconsin. So exhausted, I pulled off to the side of the interstate, took a side road, laid down in a field. Just to take some rest.

Hearing the thunder define the far reaches of the valley, I didn't even have to turn my head or do anything. I just laid on the ground and watched the storm develop and pass over me and drench me, and I guess you could say that was my baptism.

And when it was all over, I only had one question, which was, how could I be 27 years old and have never truly listened before? Because I had this new measure of significance in my life. I dropped outta graduate school, became a, uh, commercial fisherman, a deckhand on board, and sailed to Alaska-- did whatever means I could to continue with my single goal at that time, which was simply to be a better listener, and that's still my [00:26:00] goal today.

In my career as The Soundtracker, I have circled the globe three times, and I've recorded on every continent except Antarctica. When I listen, I have to be quiet.

I cannot listen for something. I just take every sound in with equal value. And the longer I remain there, I become very quiet and very inspired by what it means to be alive on planet earth. What I particularly enjoy about silence and quiet is just, hmm...

Just listen.

This is a recording that I call "Cathedral."

It's an ancient cedar grove. The last remaining grove in Pacific County. The hundreds of square miles around it have been logged, and this is the last stand. Quiet places, places that are free of noise pollution, have been going through a systematic process of extinction. Most of my recordings, uh, that I made in the early eighties, uh, cannot be made today.

Scientists have basically been concerned decades ago, [00:28:00] uh, with the fact of noise reducing our ability to hear. We now know, though that noise also reduces our ability to listen.

Well, one of the biggest challenges for me has been the way I hear the world. Right now, I'm in the middle of my second hearing loss. I'm on the process of recovery. I will play for you this recording, and then I will treat it to simulate, uh, the hearing loss that I have, just so you can get an idea.

It's a big difference. Um, I know from my notes and by looking at the display on my computer that this is a very detailed recording. Uh, this is one of my favorite recordings of the, uh, Sinharaja rainforest at night, where the insects and frogs weave these beautiful textures. And with my hearing loss, almost all of it has vanished.

Everybody hears differently. I have to remember that. Um, and if you doubt that everybody, even with tested normal hearing hears differently, all you have to do is cup your hand behind one of your ears and notice how differently you hear.

I no longer try to hear what other people were hearing. I just simply try to hear what I hear, even if [00:30:00] it's impaired, and work with what I like, and that's all I can do.

Let's listen to the Amazon.

And now we'll move further north into Belize.

And even further north into the state of Georgia is where we begin to notice a much bigger difference, as the same amount of sunlight that reaches the tropics is now spread over a much larger area. This helps explain what I call "the solar powered jukebox," and that's earth, that the more sunlight that reaches the surface of the earth, the louder the earth plays.

Let's listen this time to the Ecuadorian Amazon.

We are 1200 miles from anywhere. If I were to get lost here, and I did, but only briefly, I could walk 1200 miles before hitting another village or crossing a road.

I cannot see further than about 150 feet, even through the cracks of the branches and the trees, the forest is so dense. But I can hear for miles. The earth is music. Um, the earth besides being a solar powered jukebox, is just so amazing-- that I am part of this [00:32:00] global performance.

I think what I enjoy most of all about listening is that I disappear. When I truly listen, I disappear.

Adesuwa Agbonile: That story was produced by Leslie Chang.

So far, we've heard stories about two different shapes of aloneness: the kind you seek out, and the kind that is imposed on you. It's getting dark, so I'm walking back towards campus. The sky's gray. It looks like rain. There's no one around. I'm alone In a place where there should be people. It's disconcerting. Like, where is everyone?

Sienna White, one of the most social people I know, was alone in the middle of Alaska for the summer. In her story, she asks, what happens when being isolated leads to loneliness? Oh, it's definitely about to rain.

Sienna White: It started raining last night, so I went to bed. I watched it when I woke up this morning. I walked through it on my way to work, and I will walk through it on my way back.

But I'm in this big open room and there's a lot of tables and these windows, and the light is very thin. I'm cold. I'm in Sitka, Alaska, a hundred [00:34:00] miles, 90 miles north of Seattle. And I'm, I'm in this room by myself, and it's raining. And I don't really know how I got here. And I can, I could tell you exactly how I got here, I-- all the steps-- and it doesn't really make sense, or nothing really makes sense in the story of why I'm here, or how I'm here.

And I think the weirdest part of it is that it was my-- it was my fault. And every decision that led to this point was made by me.

The first time I started thinking about loneliness was about two years ago after summer in Alaska. That summer I went up, I was 19 years old, and I went up to develop a radio show, examining the ways that climate change is beginning to affect native culture, specifically Tlingit culture on Bernoff Island.

Sitka is a town of about 8,000 people, and it's pressed up against the Toga National Forest. So there's this beautiful, massive temperate rainforest that is dark, and honestly, kind of scary. And the minute you walk in, suddenly the possibility of a bear attack seems way more likely than any other place you've ever been.

And so, I was desperate. If there had been a Stanford student that showed up, I 1000% would've been at their house every day. But that wasn't an option to me. And so I didn't take it. I, um, I had to fill my time. I wouldn't know what to do, and so I would just come up with random things to do. I listened to a lot of podcasts while picking berries.

Um, in Alaska, you get a lot of shells washed up in the beach, but because the ocean is incredibly fertile, there's also just absolute carnage and bones and half eaten animals. And, uh, you can sometimes see killer whales from the bay, which [00:36:00] is really cool.

I went on runs, I did some watercolor. I was disappointed with my watercolors.

And I would call my mom.

I didn't really start thinking about this experience until I took a writing class, and I decided to write an essay about my summer. And I wrote this essay, and I read over it, and I was really surprised by the fact it was kind of sad. I don't think I'd fully accepted the fact that I had had a lot of sadness over the summer.

Loneliness is hard. And it's hard, but you, you, you go through it, and I think coming out of that loneliness is a really key point in kind of shaping who you are. I didn't really understand or appreciate the people around me and the way that they supported me, until I felt that I didn't have them. And so, even when I'm really happy, I think the reason I'm happy, or at least the reason of a heightened happiness, is because I know very well what it's like to be lonely.

There was one day where it rained, and I went for a run. And in my journal I remember writing, "Everything is blue."

This is my hilarious-- on my computer, I have this file called "Thoughts IV." But "four" is in Roman letters. And I, I don't know why I have this.

So the title of this used to be "Everything is Blue." And I didn't open the file, 'cause I was like, "That sounds sad. I don't wanna read about a time I was sad."

Here's, here's what I wrote. This is kind of embarrassing, but here we [00:38:00] go.

"When running last week, a rain washed Tuesday afternoon, I paused on the bridge looking over the bay. Something was happening in the sky. Clouds were streaming by-- morphing and twisting like mammalian creatures-- and everything was blue.

The ocean, a graying iris. The mountains shrouded in a cold, wet light, and the sky-- every shade with patches of phosphorescence and shining blue. It was all blue, it was raining, and having just rained."

Whewph. That is a lot of adjectives. That wasn't intended to be sad at all; it was kind of a moment of celebration.

Adesuwa Agbonile: That was Sienna White.

I'm now sitting alone inside our recording studio. The walls are soundproof. The outside world is entirely blocked out. But am I really alone? I'm talking into this microphone, and on the other side of this microphone... is you. Maybe you are alone, too. Maybe you are listening with headphones on while you're running, or doing laundry, or eating lunch.

We've been together this whole time.

So when you feel alone, are you?

Albert: [00:40:00] Hi, this is the Bridge. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: Hi, is this Albert? 

Albert: Yeah, this is Albert. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: Sorry for calling so late. I just-- I wanted to call now, because I know this is when most people call you. 

Albert: No time says I need to call the Bridge, than three in the morning. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: Yeah, I'm, I'm walking around campus right now, and I've never been out at this time before.

It's really strange. It's very quiet. 

Albert: It's so isolating. And for me, that was, like, really nice. But like, I know for some people it's just like-- it's hard. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: It definitely feels very different than during the day, like, it's much more lonely? Like, there's no one around to talk to you in person, because everyone I know is asleep.

I'm very-- like, I'm just thinking to myself. 

Albert: Like, some of my most profound thoughts happen, and then you realize-- at least I realize-- I am alone, in this moment. And I am the only one having this experience. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: Is that why the Bridge exists? Because of the way 3:00 AM feels? 

Albert: You know, the Bridge is kind of this place where, when you have no one else to talk to, well, you can always talk to us. You don't have to be alone if you don't want to be. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: Hold on, Albert.

Is this Hannah and Rebecca?

Rebecca: Hi.

Adesuwa Agbonile: Hi. So Hannah, Rebecca, Albert. You all live and work at the peer counseling center on campus, and you guys are the people who answer the phone whenever someone calls, and you're there to talk to them about whatever they're going through. What is that like? Sifting through people's late night thoughts and hearing all of their raw emotions?

Hannah: Emotions are really tricky. We can't directly pass 'em to each other. The way that [00:42:00] we understand them for ourselves, often, is like completely defined by how we are able to either, like, just kind of intuit it in our head, or how we're able to describe them. 

Rebecca: Emotions can feel very overwhelming and very confusing, and it's kind of a soup in your head, and so I feel like the Bridge is trying to organize it.

Adesuwa Agbonile: Do you think, in everyday life, people are honest with their emotions, the way that they are when they call you? 

Albert: They are when you let them. Everyone wants a sense of genuine connection. It's just so hard for people to let that happen. 

Hannah: Many people are very, very poor listeners, and I've-- you know, across my life, I've been talked over a lot.

They'll say, "Oh, did the test go well?" Or, "Are you excited for your trip?"

There are subtle expectations which are created in these types of questions. It makes it really hard for people to kinda walk across any landscape for that if, for instance, the test didn't go well, or they're feeling anxious about spring break for one reason or another, you know?

Adesuwa Agbonile: Okay, but when people call you, you make a point to listen. What kind of things do you ask people to get them to open up? 

Albert: "So where does that leave you? What do you mean by that? So what's that like?" 

Adesuwa Agbonile: So why do you think that--

Albert: Um, this is so weird. Um, like-- not, not, not your question, um-- but the word "why" is like chastised in the Bridge community.

It pushes people to have to justify their actions. When you're here on the phone with someone, and I'm trying to figure out what's going on in your life, I need to be there with you, rather than judge you. The word "why" connotes judging. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: Okay, so not "why," but, "what's that like for you?" Asking all these questions that gets at people's deepest, darkest 3:00 AM secrets.[00:44:00] 

Hannah: There's just something very special about having a complete stranger give you trust that, you know, despite not knowing them, and despite having not really earned it by any means with them, that they will open up to you in a hope that you are going to respond in a way that is supportive and hopefully helpful to them.

There's a very, very different level of trust required when that person has never, ever seen you, or spoken with you ever before. 

Rebecca: You can hear when someone is smiling. You can hear when someone is about to cry. Like, those emotions become very accentuated over the phone. You'll, you'll hear the way they're breathing. You'll hear them laughing. 

Albert: A lot of calls-- I realized at some point, that this is the first time they've ever talked about this.

I remember, my first call actually was a, um-- it was a sexual assault call. One of the biggest things was like, this was their first time talking to anyone about it. And it made me realize, like, "Wow, this conversation will end, and you will never hear from me again."

And that's sad in a lot of ways, but in a way, that's kind of why you could be vulnerable in the first place. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: But is it like that? I mean, right now we're on the phone with each other, so I'm alone and you're alone. 

Albert: Hmm. I don't think of it as being alone, I think is the answer to that question. It's this profound moment where anything that was happening in my life is irrelevant. It's kind of this rush you get where [00:46:00] you can drop everything else, and you're a hundred percent justified in dropping everything else, and you can just be about this person.

Adesuwa Agbonile: Okay, so what about after you hang up? 

Albert: Ooh. Oh, that's different, yeah. Um--

Another Bridge staffer 1: Um, I don't know.

Another Bridge staffer 2: The person usually is like, "Okay, I have to go now." And then you're like, "Okay." You, like, put the phone back, and you have this moment sitting alone in this room, just with your thoughts, hoping that this person you've spoken to is doing better.

And it's kind of a, a lonely feeling, where like you forged this deeply intimate relationship with someone, and now they're like gone. And like, you probably will never speak to them again.

Hannah: And hanging up on those sometimes feels, like, really hollowing. Just very much so, kind of like, "Yikes, this is a tough world."

Adesuwa Agbonile: I mean, if you can feel that bad, do you think it's worth it? 

Albert: There's this type of rush that comes with being able to just drop everything and care for a person. It's in many ways beautiful and kind of self-serving. And I know for myself, and I think for a number of people, that can be kind of weird to admit. But in many ways, it can feel good to just be able to take care of this other person. And like, it can be like this spiritual connection, almost, where you intertwine with this person very briefly and then they just leave.

If you ever like walk down the street, and you see someone and you have [00:48:00] this moment, "Oh my God, that that person has a story too, and that person has, uh, uh-- people they love, and people that love them, and, and they have all of these intertwining relationships, and they have probably messes and successes." I get, I would get this yearning that's just like, "Oh my God, like, could I just talk to them? Could I just kind of push into that world of theirs, into this, like, entirely different person? This entirely different story?"

The Bridge lets you do that. You basically sit here, and people along the street walk up to you and say, "This is my story. This is what's going on in my life right now." And that is so beautiful to me.

Um, and so, you know, that's, that's why I do it. 

Adesuwa Agbonile: Well, thank you so much for talking to me, and for telling your stories, and for listening.

Thanks, everyone. 

Staffers saying bye: Bye. Bye. Bye.

Adesuwa Agbonile: You've been listening to State of the Human, the podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project. This episode was produced by Yui Li, Sofia Sanchez-Luege, Jett Hayward, Stephanie Niu, Sienna White, Christy Hartman, Jake Warga, and me, Adesuwa Agbonile. For their generous financial support, we'd like to thank the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford Arts, and Bruce Braden.

You can find this and every episode of State of the Human through our website, storytelling.stanford.edu.