“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” —Thoreau
“Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” —Kafka
Being a teacher means that for 180 days per year, I act as centerpiece in a vast, often overwhelming community. As someone who values education as a qualitative endeavor, this is the duty I’ve assigned myself and the life I’ve chosen. As an introvert, this is a nightmare and a particularly pointed form of masochism. Daily, at work, I find myself behind the locked door of a staff restroom taking deep breaths, telling myself it will be over soon. Whether or not this work is worth potentially endangering my health and sanity—it isn’t without its rewarding aspects—is the subject of constant mental debate.
When I am on break from teaching—one of those rewarding aspects—I desire silence and require solitude. Oftentimes at work, once I have heard the hundredth question of the day, I imagine myself lying on the forest floor behind my home, gazing blankly at the treetops and blue sky beyond, detached from human noise. The idea for this short essay came about when I realized that I get far more excited about making that vision a reality than I do imagining spending time with other people.
In other words, teaching doesn’t help my desire for human community, but teaching is far from the only reason I cherish solitude. The more time I spend studying and writing, the more time I spend in nature, the more I experience the garden of my craft expanding into something beautiful, the more the world rolls in ecstasy at my feet, and the more introversion takes hold of me. It’s a compounding effect.
For those who know, interior life is wonderful. Simply, it is filled with greater treasures and more genuine rewards than the external world. Society, with its boardgames and masks, doesn’t stand a chance against the soul admitted to itself (as Emily Dickinson would say). Is this just a part of getting older in an isolated place or is this a symptom of our culture, one built by the banner of individualism and now fragmented by media and tech?
Okay, I do not live a lonely life, so yes, I’m privileged to make these statements. Each day, I come home to two beautiful brilliant people, my partner and seven-(almost eight!)-year-old daughter. Lula is maybe the only person I enjoy spending time with in the outdoors more than myself. Watching her curiosity at work has been maybe the most joyful experience of my life. But she is my only child and she lives more of a prolific social life than her father. Piano, gymnastics, birthday parties, sleepovers, weekends with grandma. And because her mother is also a master, working night and day on her vintage clothes business, dad is awarded some free time to roam around the woods like an old rogue Zen poet. (If I ever have a legacy, please God, let it be that.)
Then there are my friends. God bless them, I’ve enjoyed some fine people in this life. Things might be different if we were closer in proximity, but I’m not so sure of that anymore. In recent years, I have come to appreciate that I live on a farm an hour from my best friends. An hour in your late 30s is enough for isolation. We talk on the phone less, and for the past few years, don’t visit as frequently. When we do visit, it’s a blessing, so please don’t mistake my message—I will always need my friends. But relationships change over time. When I was younger, I desired their constant companionship. I’d stay up all night with them and hated to see the morning come. We’d spend days together without getting tired of one another, and I imagined back then ending up living in a commune with them, raising our children together. We had a name for ourselves: the Electric Family.
But like Thoreau said, we wake up in the morning and re-introduce ourselves for the musty old cheese that we are. These days, I can’t imagine living in a communal setting with anyone. I would be the hermit of the village. The constant companionship of even saints would drive me mad. Maybe saints would drive me particularly mad. So for now, it is good to see my friends come, and it is even sweeter to see them go. I think as long as we have a little distance between us, we can remember what love is. As long as I have adequate alone time, I can remember why I appreciate them.
As for more friends, new friends, no thanks. Not saying that if some beautiful soul ambled into my life, I would be so stubborn as to avoid them completely. But avoid them part of the time, I would. Outside of my job, I am a generally poor member of the wider community here. I don’t hang at bars, and I don’t go to church. I think community events are for the weak-hearted and perhaps that people’s desire for such is a leftover survival technique from a harder time. I do work out at the local gym, where headphones cover my ears, usually playing youtube writing lectures or audiobooks. If anyone approaches me, my face says please don’t.
Even when it comes to the gardeners and farmers who frequent our land, people whom I admire, all acquaintances of my legendary father-in-law (who is mighty sociable), I find myself avoiding them, not knowing what to say. I avoid them because I would rather not wear a mask when I’m not at work. And because the conventionality of most people tends to disappoint me.
The diversity of nature never disappoints. Neither does art. Art is one of the few things in my life that is always worthwhile. And quiet time away from society is the only time inspiration offers itself to me. Quiet time away from society is one of the few things I live for.
Society, I find, is too narrow-minded. My experience is that even people who claim to be open are a predictable sort. They might claim tolerance but are often so entrenched in their beliefs—be those the certitudes of progressivism or conservatism (equally as annoying to me)—that they are often blinded from the truth, from the golden middle path. Humans overall feel the need to conform; their original spirits are plagued by tradition, and they often operate based on narratives chosen by others for them. I find a self-examining individual, one who is aware yet unashamed of their biases, to be rare indeed.
I recently finished one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read, which illustrated this point well, Morris Berman’s The Reenchantment of the World. The book traces the history of western consciousness, how the Cartesian revolution and the advent of capitalism ultimately killed off the holistic mindset of archaic peoples, replacing a more superstitious way of thinking with scientific materialism, cynicism, and reductionist-type mechanization of behavior. Berman argues that this shift was ultimately a mistake and that the world is worse off for it. He also lays out a brilliant argument as to why the modern scientific mindset is less rational than we might believe it is and calls for a new synthesis, joining old and new modes of thinking, to achieve a more mature way of reasoning about the world, one in which the observer becomes aware of how their observation shapes the reality they perceive (a quantum physics sort of idea).
Anyway, it got me thinking about how most people buy the ticket and take the ride without ever questioning that there might be different ways of seeing the world. The materialist tends to hate on the spiritual person without considering that there might be some validity to their perspective. Why should materialism and spirituality be mutually exclusive? Are there ways of seeing the world that incorporate both? Of course there are. But most people are certain that their beliefs are a matter of fact. Facts that spin round infantile ape brains. Maybe certainty helps them sleep. Like many wise people have stated, the only thing I’m certain of is that I’m certain of very little. This is one reason I love nature—nature is the living body of mystery. Even the places in the woods I frequent daily provide constant surprises. I hope to never be ignorant enough to claim that I know it well. If I ever do claim such, I am a fool.
I am not a religious person for reasons mentioned above. There is too much certainty in religion for me to keep listening. But I do march to the beat of the transcendentalists. (See what I did there?) They understood that nature and solitude can be the source of a spiritual life—that you don’t need to know all the secrets in order to experience the goods.
In solitude, I recognize myself as another embodiment of that mysterious force of life that pervades the universe. There, in the woods, with just myself and millions of other lifeforms, which are not wanting of me but welcoming me, I can strip away the superficial layers (it helps to take your clothes off if it’s not too cold), and see myself, as Emerson said, as part and parcel of God. Though the birds sing and the leaves rattle, I hear God (a useful word for spirit) speaking through them. And for a quiet moment, the separateness of all objects is an illusion as plain as day. The earth thumps like a single drum beat. It is only in these moments that I am free.
Experiences like this require that you leave the world behind. We can never be this free with other people. This means, for me, finding a place away from all human noise (not easy to do in this century). This also means leaving technology behind. Media in general is a disrupter of the spiritual experience—it is like society’s voice calling to us, “take a picture, others want to see.” If you want to be truly free, untethered and inspired, you must leave your cellphone, the news, your friends, your dog, your alarms behind. You must even sacrifice your own safety for the liberty of your spirit. I’m not trying to convince you of this; I’m speaking from experience.
Anyway, this has gone on long enough for now. I hope you all have a beautiful holiday season with friends and family and Christmas cheer. And when you are done with people’s shit, I hope you will find a quiet place to sit down. I hope you turn off the voices of the world—those speaking madly at you and the one in your head that worries so much. I hope you will allow the earth, God, spirit, whatever it is, to enter your heart in that quiet place.
Jah bless.
I love this quote: "The diversity of nature never disappoints." It's all I think about while working: "how many days & hours until I can go for a nice hike alone with my thoughts and the Nature around me.
I used to go on hikes more for keeping birding lists, distances walked, etc. Now I'm much more about the alone time and just quietly observing Nature. And as you wrote, that diversity never disappoints.
"...nature is the living body of mystery." I agree completely, this seems the most obvious truth to me. I too must lose myself in places of spaciousness and quietude, and bring my inner landscape into alignment with them.