Excerpt from Solitude

"Men frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such- This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction. This will vary with different natures, but this is the place where a wise man will dig his cellar....

..Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are."

Walden, "Solitude" - Henry David Thoreau

I enjoy being in solitude. While it is nice talking to those who spark interest, provide good companionship, compassion, and joy, there is always more to learn - and oft ignored and sought elsewhere - of that which can be found within all life and especially one's own. I think loneliness is an attitude - an illusioned one at that - that is associated with solitude that prohibits thinking and life in its highest forms.

"Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed."

I'm continuously amazed at the potential of the power in the human body to support itself without what is being made to be as "necessary". Just some thoughts.

Your friend,
Alex