06 November 2014
"The Luxury of Solitude"
From this essay by Linda Holmes:
We have a certain cultural mistrust of solitude, I think. It is for weirdos and lost souls, spinsters and misfits. But in truth, I can't tell you what a luxury I think it is to be entitled to it. Most of the time, I want good company, like most people do. But the experience of earned, voluntary aloneness is, among other things, instructive. I don't think you can really understand how accustomed you are to being scheduled and operating off an internal to-do list at almost all times until you think to yourself, "My goal will be to get to Providence by 4," and then you think, "Why is there a goal?"
And then it begins to make you internally rebellious: What if I drove with no goal? What if I had nowhere to be all day until it was time to sleep and I discussed with no one where to stop and take a picture, where to have lunch, what shop to go in, or which way to turn on the trail? What would I do if I could do anything — in this micro-environment, in this moment, at the point of this particular pause, what is my wish?
We have a certain cultural mistrust of solitude, I think. It is for weirdos and lost souls, spinsters and misfits. But in truth, I can't tell you what a luxury I think it is to be entitled to it. Most of the time, I want good company, like most people do. But the experience of earned, voluntary aloneness is, among other things, instructive. I don't think you can really understand how accustomed you are to being scheduled and operating off an internal to-do list at almost all times until you think to yourself, "My goal will be to get to Providence by 4," and then you think, "Why is there a goal?"
And then it begins to make you internally rebellious: What if I drove with no goal? What if I had nowhere to be all day until it was time to sleep and I discussed with no one where to stop and take a picture, where to have lunch, what shop to go in, or which way to turn on the trail? What would I do if I could do anything — in this micro-environment, in this moment, at the point of this particular pause, what is my wish?
Labels: Linda Holmes, travel
# posted by mamurd @ 8:38 PM 
