The moment our plane touches down in San Juan, I join the other passengers in the ritual

of cheering and applauding.

Everyone is always happy to land in Puerto Rico.

I'm happy to be here too.

My first semester of graduate school has been intensely lonely.

I chose to stay at the same school where I went to college, but all my friends have

moved away.

So I packed paper and envelopes and stamps with me on this trip so that I can stay in

touch with friends who are now scattered all over the country.

It's 1998.

There's no Wi-Fi, or emails, or text messages.

Normally I come to Muggie Island on Thanksgiving, but this year I've got a lot of dissertation

research to do, which means I'm here over the winter holidays too.

For the long parts of the day, I'm literally the only human being on a huge island with

a thousand monkeys.

This kind of solitude is of a different nature entirely than anything I've experienced

in my life.

The presence of all these other beings makes me feel alone, but also connected all at

once.

Laurie Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale University and host of the Happiness

Lab podcast.

Her science of wellbeing course became the most popular in Yale's history, more than

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