Good morning everyone,

We start with the television event of the season, The Age Of Loneliness featuring friend of Fem Friday, Kylie Taylor:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06vkhr5/the-age-of-loneliness

If you don’t have time to watch an hour of television show right now, maybe cancel one of your meetings and get right on that. Or you can read this article and summary by the producer, Sue Bourne:

“Lonely” hits a spot of fear in all of us even if we don’t acknowledge it. So a year ago, I set out to find people who were brave enough to admit and talk about how lonely they were. But I wanted to find people whose stories offered hope – either because they’d found a way of dealing with loneliness or because they had something in their lives that, even in a small way, alleviated their loneliness.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/04/10-reasons-people-lonely-the-age-of-loneliness

This documentary also showed Sara Maitland sitting with her feet up on the sofa WHILE WEARING HIKING BOOTS to subtly demonstrate the benefits of living alone. I liked her a great deal. Enjoy this review of one of her books, The Book Of Silence:

Maitland set out with many questions about the nature of silence and its companion, solitude. The most urgent was posed in reaction to a letter from a respected friend, who argued against silence as “the place of death, of nothingness.” Yet Mait­land became convinced that silence was not a “negative condition” but “a positive presence.” So she set out to prove this radical proposition — one that, as it happens, caused alarm and concern among her friends and family. People who spend a great deal of their time quiet and alone are often considered selfish, if not misanthropic, although nothing could be further from the truth. Maitland sets out from a place of loving concern, full of tenderness for the human condition and hope that we might fulfill our best destinies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/books/review/Browning-t.html?_r=0

Have a nice Friday,

Alex.