Does the idea of being alone fill you with dread, or seem a luxury? Erica Buist speaks to five people whose lifestyles leave them in splendid isolationWhat’s the difference between solitude and loneliness? We may confuse the two because we’ve been trained since we were young to think about them as the same state. By sending children to their rooms as punishment, we teach them the idea that aloneness is a privation. “It should be a reward,” says Sara Maitland, author of How To Be Alone.