Solitude

    Not long ago someone asked me why I loved walking so much. The question isn't as strange as it at first may appear. I mean, I used to run in my youth...many moons ago! But as time went on, like my grandfather (the sainted Brother D), I embraced walking (the screaming from my knees while running may have had something to do with it!). But what made it a little easier for me (and trust me, I was worried about the possible "boredom factor?") was the fact that I live, and have lived, near some wonderful places in which to enjoy long walks. Whether it was walking around the city of Boston, including the Boston Commons, or along the Charles River, or Harvard Square and MIT; and more recently here in Bucks County's parks like Tyler State Park, Core Creek Park, or Washington Crossing Park along the Delaware River. As I grew older (and maybe more mature?), I learned to embrace the beauty of it all that I did not do as a youth, and that you don't get on a treadmill or an elliptical at the gym. And of course, there's the whole fresh air thing as well as a different kind of exercise. That said, I sensed that my questioner was looking for something more specific...maybe even more meaningful. Certainly more meaningful than my standard answer about not wanting to be buried in a piano case! Fair enough... 

    For a long time, someone who embraced solitude was looked upon with a certain degree of concern or even pity. The loner, for lack of a better word, was seen as someone who was filled with despair...with gloom everywhere... eminently sad. I have the great Billie Holiday in my iTunes library, and one of her songs touches on this as only one of her songs can. In the end she sings about being certain she will go mad as she sits alone in her room. If she were alive today, I think Ms. Holiday would be shocked to learn that solitude is no longer the dark and dreary state described by the lyricists Eddie DeLange and Irving Mills, who wrote many of her songs. On the contrary, it is now believed the solitary life is one that needs to be cultivated on the way to a rounder, fuller, and in many ways a more healthy mental state of being. Who knew?!

    It is said that the zeitgeist shifts, and all but the earth shifts with it, causing the meanings of words to change and basic concepts to lose their traditional standing. I don't know if you remember, but there was a groundbreaking book written back in 2000 by the political scientist Robert Putnam called Bowling Alone. Putnam believed (and made a great case for) that Americans had lost their sense of community and that "we have become increasingly disconnected from one another, and now social structures - whether they be PTA, church, or political parties - have disintegrated." There were all kinds of reviews for this book, praising its author and his thesis. They all talked about how Putnam had touched on something that was missing from our national discourse; how these broken bonds had taken a toll on our physical and civic health; nor had anyone praised their power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe. 

    So what happened? I suppose it's easy, again, to blame cellphones, podcasts, social media, etc., that have made life quicker, more crowded, and less under control. This seems especially true for the young, where therapy has become more frequent. It would seem that not more friends, but fewer are the ideal. Solitude has come to seem, to many people, not such a bad thing. 

    To be fair, the quest for solitude is not something new. John Keats has a sonnet with the title, "O, Solitude!" And Wordsworth, in his Prelude, wrote:

    When from our better selves we have too long

    Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop

    Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired.

    How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.

    Two centuries earlier, the great essayist Montaigne wrote a huge essay on the subject of solitude. "Now the aim of all solitude, I take it, is the same: to live more at leisure and at one’s ease,” he explained. To achieve this, it is “not enough to have gotten away from the crowd, it is not enough to move; we must get away from the gregarious instincts that are inside us, we must sequester ourselves and repossess ourselves.” He notes that “real solitude may be enjoyed in the midst of cities and the courts of kings; but it is enjoyed more handily alone,” and he adds that “the greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Montaigne lived this ideal, retiring after an active political life for the better part of each of his days to a tower in which he kept his books and lived his private life, enjoying his own thoughts and writing them out in his essays.

    So again, this reverence for solitude is not a new phenomenon. Some people, for example, find it in art. They find solitude in an art museum, or even a certain artist's work that puts them in a certain frame of mind. Or maybe it's music. I love listening to pieces like Mozart's Flute Concertos or Beethoven's String Quartets, along with modern piano geniuses like Keith Jarrett or Bill Payne. All of these masters take me to a place where the world fades away and I find myself all alone...and that's a pretty cool thing.

    Some have suggested that there is an age relation to the attraction of solitude. In his book Solitude: A Return to the Self, the English psychiatrist Anthony Storr writes that “the old often show less interest in interpersonal relations, are more content to be alone, and become more preoccupied with their own, internal concerns…. There is often an increase in objectivity toward others combined with a decrease in identification with them.” Storr suggests that this may be why “relations between grandparents and grandchildren are often easier than between parents and children.” Because I'm a dope AND a cynic, I prefer to believe the reason grandparents and grandchildren get on so well is that they have a common enemy, but we'll let that pass for now.

    According to everyone I've talked to and the few pieces I've read on this subject, the first and most important distinction that needs to be made is between solitude and loneliness. There's a wonderful book titled, Solitude: The Science and Power of Being Alone by 3 authors that have done their homework on the topic. It's almost like a study of other studies. Anyway...they've interviewed numerous people and found that human beings have myriad ways of embracing solitude. For example, there is 68-year-old Brian from England, who speaks of "peace, quiet, on your own, like you're fishing, nobody else around, lovely river, lovely location, fishing away. Peace, quiet, babble of brook maybe. Just being with nature, lovely, being on your own." As soon as I read that, I said, "That's me!" I mean, you couldn't pay me enough money to fish all day, but Brian's thoughts are exactly how I feel when I'm golfing. Especially, if I head out in the afternoon to play by myself; which really works for me because then I'm not stuck with some nitwits who are playing music on their smartphones while I'm trying to hit a high Tiger-esque fade  with a 6-iron to a back right pin to win the match (and you know who you people are). You are such an idiot! Anyway, whatever your golf equivalent to that is, I think those are the times you can really find yourself. 

    The authors of Solitude also recognize how painful loneliness can be, and they do their best to differentiate the two. That said, they argue that solitude, far from causing pain, "is not a shift away from others but an intentional move toward our best possible selves." Or as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it, "The better angels of our nature." The authors believe that "time well spent in solitude is critical to embracing an insightful, meaningful, and peaceful life." Solitude, for the authors, "is not the absence of anything, not really, but rather the presence of everything." They define solitude as "a state in which the self is placed in the center of one's attention and, if not physically alone, then mentally distanced from others." When I read that, it helped me to better understand the popularity of some Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. These, and other Eastern philosophies/religions are very much centered in the solitude and the self. As I've written before, I'm not sure I understand The Buddha, but I love The Buddha!

    Some people have a knack for solitude. Others, well, not so much. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with childhood experience, or whether you're an introvert or extrovert. A great many factors may influence whether or not one turns to solitude to find meaning in their lives. For me, I can only say that I found that I had a propensity for solitude way back in junior high school when I spent almost the entire summer between 7th and 8th grades in the local Bucks County Library right around the corner from where we lived in Levittown, Pa. I got there when it opened and stayed for hours, trying to devour every single book on every single shelf. Then I would check out books to read that night. Needless to say, the parental units were not pleased with some of the late charges they had to fork over! And my mother was even more concerned that I wasn't going to have any friends if I spent all summer in the library! But all for a worthy cause, right?! I can hear her now to all of her friends at the Bible study. "My son's not right...what do I do?" Easy, Mom. I turned out okay! "Let us be the judge of that, Boss!"

    Solitude is a mental luxury, while enforced solitude can be a torture, as we have been witness to all too often in these modern times. Nazi, Soviet, and Hamas interrogators have used enforced solitude to break down enemies. On the other hand, those Buddhists and Hindus, as well as Trappist and other monks opt for voluntary enforced solitude. And for the religious amongst you, one would think that prayer is best rendered in solitude, yet Jews require a community of 10, for their prayers. 

    As one finds himself or herself on the back-9 of life, as it were, solitude inevitably leads to thoughts and meditations on death. The essayist Montaigne, the ancient Roman leader Marcus Aurelius, and the Roman philosopher Seneca, all wrote and meditated upon death in their writings of solitude. Aurelius invokes us to "retire into thyself." In his Meditations, he reminds us how small is our role, even among emperors, in the drama of eternity. "Do not despise death," he writes, "but be well content with it, since this too is one of those things which nature wills. For such as it is to be young and to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have teeth and beard and gray hairs, and to beget, and to be pregnant, and to bring forth, and all the other natural operations which the seasons of thy life bring, such also is dissolution.” Fame, wealth, power, in the end, Marcus Aurelius insists, none of it matters: “Pass then through this little space of time comfortably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree it grew on." Seneca, too, implored us not to overrate the significance of death. "He will live badly," he wrote, "who does not know how to die well." He also noted that "he who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man."

    So where does this, I hope not too boring essay for you, dear reader, leave us? As for me, my own exercises in solitude, whether it be a good walk on a golf course in the afternoon, or sitting and reading a well-written novel, doesn't necessarily help me become one with the universe! It does, sometimes, force me to focus on the stupid and/or hurtful things I've done in my life, the losses I still bemoan, and to try and not repeat them. Death? Well, not so much. I've got poetry and my Gnostic beliefs to help me focus on that subject. However, it does help clear the mind, and maybe help me focus a bit more. In the eternal search for solitude, I have cut down on certain indulgences in the digital culture, since nothing is more efficient in swamping a person's free time. I've cut down on the podcasts I listen to, as well as the number of blogs I read. My Facebook time is pretty much relegated to attaching my website to it (narcissist that I am!), and I've cut off all links to LinkedIn.

    And what is achieved in all this? Well, the authors of Solitude tell us that based on their positive views of the subjects in their study - that being good at solitude entails "optimism (having a positive outlook on life), a growth mind-set (seeing solitude as an opportunity to reflect and grow), self-compassion (being kind to oneself), curiosity (exhibiting an openness to learning and experiencing wonder and awe), and being present in the moment.” Oh, well. Except for self-compassion and curiosity, I fail to qualify on any of these grounds! The upside is, despite the beauty in which she delivers the song, I don't find myself succumbing to Billie Holiday's gloom, despair, sadness, and the certainty that she'll go mad. So I've got that going for me...and I hope for you, as well.  

    And no, I didn't forget...a Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there!! Especially my favorite member of the Bald Brotherhood; Preston Duane Phillips. Love you, Duane. Happy Father's Day!

    

    write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com