In a corner of the room, I sat unmoved,
Noises from the playground were feeble, not mute;
Whistles and chatter were filling up the skies,
“Wasting in ignorance are they, their lives”
Many of us think that being alone is the worst thing that can happen to us. It doesn’t send out a positive message about one’s personality to the society and causes immense mental strain to the individual. I believe this is a foul logic, and a widely propagated one too.
Loneliness is hard earned. And the earlier you understand this, the sooner your life gets sorted. Imagine yourself as a tree that has numerous fruits hanging from its branches. You had seen those fruits sprung from flowers. The journey from a bud to a flower and finally to a fruit is mesmerising. As the tree, did you not feel a sense of pride when you saw them? Wasn’t there a connect between you and the fruits? Moreover, you’ve always knonw that they will not stay with you forever. Yet, you turned a blind eye to this irrefutable truth. So, when the time came, they kissed the ground. These fruits, though a dear/deer possession to the tree, eventually parted away. You can now get the analogy. These fruits are your family and friends.
Is it then not worthwhile to equip oneself to make peace with this reality?
How?
Detachment is the key to savoring loneliness.
Distancing yourself from your closest acquaintances is a terrible ask. Yet, it is the only means. An early parting from friends should prepare you for the same when it comes to your parents and in future, your kids. Do not confuse introspection with loneliness, for though both are means to adjust yourself better to changing circumstances, the latter has to be a sad affair. From being lonely (sad) at first, you should eventually train yourself to be alone (content with self) . It is this isolation that will prepare you for the hard reality: everything is temporary. That tree has acknowledged the reality and so should we.
fruitingthoughts 
I see a conflict here. You are trying to say that it is not that loneliness is not something we should be scared of, because it prepares us for the inevitable loneliness that is to come in the future. If being alone is not some sort of punishment why should I prepare for it. Do you see the Paradox.
Although I believe that being alone can teach you a lot, afterall when we dont have anybody else around to focus our critical faculties on we begin to introspect and this can teach us about ourselves more than we could ever anticipate. But the next logical step to this introspection is moulding ourselves into something different, changing our core values to some extent too. The problem here is during this ‘transformation’, if we do not have a frame of reference of ourselves (which we build from the people and possessions we surround ourselves with), we become incapable of acknowledge the changes that have happened within ourselves. We get lost in the our own mental construct, many resolve to coming back to their old friends to rebuild.
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Loneliness is definitely not a punishment, rather it is a phase (mostly unwanted or unwelcomed). These phases of loneliness come in discrete packages spread across our lifetime. The severity of these phases increases as we grow old. This is why I believe that we should prepare today to face the severest of these phases. Does this solve the paradox?
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There is a certain ineffable quality to memory, apart from a series of events, we remember how we felt at a certain moment. And for most if not all cases, these memories are arranged and recalled based on our feelings. Similarity many of our decisions are informed by instinct than pure logic (the percentage shall vary with each individual). I think detachment blocks feelings and weakens instinct. My present decisions will be more logical (read mechanical) and my old age memories will be less lucid if I detach myself.
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I think what you are implying is more like aloneness but not loneliness. Loneliness is actually a sad thing. A feeling you get when you find a void or vacuum in your life due to unfulfilled social and emotional needs. Detachment for savouring loneliness is a forceful, illusory and also temporary solution. It’s a sour-grapes strategy to the problem. Detachment must come from within and it has nothing to do with the outside situation. Because if it is, it will lead to attachment once the situation changes. If you are truly detached you will never feel lonely because you don’t have the above needs. On the other hand, aloneness is good. It’s when you are complete within yourself and don’t need external inputs. So loneliness is actually not hard earned as many people suffer from it leading to becoming anti-social. It actually leads to building more and more walls than breaking them down which is what detachment must ideally do.
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So I just searched a bit about Aloneness and Loneliness, and the inputs are similar to what you have pointed out here. I understand how aloneness would signify completeness and the state where no one is needed. However, I will still support the fact that loneliness will be the founding ground to aloneness. The state when you are complete in yourself has to come from some realization. And that realization I think would be from loneliness. In our day to day chores, we tend to reflect back on the happenings of life only when certain action causes disharmony. A period of despair, and not that of happiness or contentedness, enables us to look into us. Hence, loneliness is hard earned! One shouldn’t become anti-social, but should partake in all relationships as if he/she were playing a role, with little emotional attachment.
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