Loneliness is the inevitable fact of human existence. –Thomas Wolfe
What are some of the ingredients that are necessary in order for us to create ‘Solitude’?
The key ingredients will vary from person to person and so one invitation for you today, Gentle Reader: To take some time and note or emerge and note the ingredients that are necessary for you in order to create ‘Solitude.’ Here are four of mine.
Loneliness. The great wisdom figures, mystics and prophets of all ages remind us that we humans ‘live’ within a number of polarities. One of these polarities is the polarity of Loneliness________Ecstasy. In order to move into solitude we must be able to move into and embrace Loneliness. We do not cherish, much less even like, Loneliness. We will go to great lengths to avoid the experience/feeling. It takes courage (think: ‘heart’) in order to seek out, embrace, and reside in the house of loneliness. Solitude will not visit, nor stay, if we are not living in the house of loneliness. The great wisdom figures, mystics and prophets counsel and console us with these words: Be Not Afraid! [Ya, sure, easy for them to say…well, then again, perhaps it was not easy for them to say.]
Freedom from the Crowd. We have two essential human freedoms: Freedom From (as in Freedom from Fear) and Freedom To (as in Freedom to Choose). Erich Fromm reminds us that we ‘fear freedom’ [See Fromm’s powerful treatise: Escape From Freedom]. Again, the great wisdom figures, mystics and prophets all sought ways to escape from the ‘Crowd.’ They were not able to enter into ‘Solitude’ without escaping from the ‘Crowd’ (the ‘Crowd’ is a both a reality – the literal crowds that tried to engulf them – and is a metaphor, the ‘Crowds’ of noise, distraction, temptation, etc.). ‘Crowds,’ as we know, are quite fickle. They can be wildly supportive one minute and wildly destructive the next (ask any of the Prophets about the fickleness of the crowds).
Each of the great wisdom figures, mystics and prophets knew (or learned – not an easy lesson to be learned for most of them) that if they were going to become the person they were called to be that they need time away from the ‘Crowd’ – literal and metaphorical. By the by, Freud, Jung and other great psychologists remind us that depression and despair occur more frequently in people who do not, on a regular basis, escape the ‘Crowd’ (psychological research continues to support this reality).
A Responsibility & a Right to Private-Personal Thoughts. We not only have a ‘right’ to our personal thoughts we have an obligation-responsibility to develop them. How many people know the difference between their thoughts and the thoughts of their parents, their faith-traditions, their ‘leaders,’ etc.? In a sense, having our ‘own thoughts’ is akin to having ‘personal space.’
There is another aspect of this responsibility and right. We have the responsibility and right NOT TO divulge all of our thoughts. I am thinking of Sir Thomas Moore (1478-1535) and his refusal to reveal his thoughts about Henry VIII’s divorce and remarriage. Moore did not even reveal his thoughts to his wife. He tells his wife ‘in silence is my safety under the law, but my silence must be absolute, it must extend to you.’ He was protecting her from having to testify against him in court. His silence left him alone with his God and his conscience.
Companionship with God. Once again, the great wisdom figures, mystics and prophets are role-models for us. They remind us, by their words and by their behavior, that a central ingredient of ‘Solitude’ resides in the belief (and at times experience) that God is always with them; God remains faithful even when all others do not (including the times when one abandons one’s self). ‘Awareness’ of God’s presence provides consolation, companionship and transforms loneliness into solitude. This companionship enables one to transform privacy into ethical responsibility – we develop, embrace and enact our own ethical-moral convictions. What we think transforms into moral integrity. The great Rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, reminds us that we can leave God and that God never leaves us. In fact, when we leave God, God continues to search for us.
So given all of this, what are some of the conditions conducive to ‘Solitude’?
Searcher-Seeker 