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Besides the physical dangers, there's also the question of whether solitude is psychologically healthy. Most research suggests it's not. Professor Craig Haney, a psychologist at the University of California who evaluated over a hundred inmates held at high-security supermax prisons in the United States, once wrote that "many of those subjected to [solitary confinement] are at risk of long-term emotional and even physical damage." Other research, also based on prisoners in solitary confinement (human isolation studies outside of prison are rare, mainly because of research ethics), has suggested that extreme solitude can make people delirious, paranoid, depressed, and actively suicidal.Read: The Freedom and Danger of Train-Hopping Across America
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The last time I saw Virgil, we drank beer and sat on a ridge facing some mountains. It was March by then, and we watched a woodpecker perched nearby on a rusted billycan. Virgil asked me if I knew how the bird knew where to look for food."I used to wonder about that," he said. "One day I was watching this motherfucker and he'd keep looking off to the side like he was watching out for something. Then I figured it out: He had his head turned to listen for grubs scratching under the bark. I guess there's smart people who know that 'cause they read it or seen it in a documentary. But how many of 'em learnt it 'cause they seen it with their eyes?"I nodded. In the rush to fill our days with pseudo-important stuff, most of us overlook the simple truth. Up there on his Arizona hilltop, Virgil might've been tormented by his tribe of devils, but he also knew that one way or another, it's all the same."You can burn yourself up thinking," he told me once. "I prefer to keep my feet on the ground, live a day at a time. I mean, you don't see a dog sitting around takin' itself serious and shit."Follow Paul Willis on Twitter.On Motherboard: The Case for Solitude in Science