Solitude and Loneliness

Happypizza: Here is an amazing collection of quotes on the subject of loneliness and solitude. Definitely worth a read, with some positive ways to look at the experience–and sometimes pain–of loneliness.

• All humans are frightened of their own solitude. But only in solitude can we learn to know ourselves, learn to handle our own eternal aloneness.–Han Suyin
• Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.–Thomas Browne
• Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.–Alice Koller
• Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life’s greatest tests alone.–Agnes Macphail
• Each of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. … When you face your aloneness, something begins to happen. Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes into a sense of true belonging. This is a slow and open-ended transition but it is utterly vital in order to come into rhythm with your own individuality. –John O’Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong)
• I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.–Peter Hoeg (Smilla’s Sense of Snow)
• I learned…that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.–Brenda Ueland
• I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.–Albert Einstein
• I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.–Henry David Thoreau
• Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.–Pearl S. Buck
• Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.–Jeanne Marie Laskas
• It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking . . . in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.–Franz Kafka
• It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse.–Max Nordau
• Language has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone, and the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.–Paul Johannes Tillich
• Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall.–Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.–Indra Devi
• Man cannot survive without air, water and sleep. Next in importance comes food. And close on its heels, solitude.–Thomas Szasz
• One must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.–Meister Eckhart
• Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.–Hans Margolius
• Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.–Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)
• The person who has not learned to be happy and content while completely alone for an hour a day, or a week has missed life’s greatest serenity.–H. Clay Tate (Building a Better Home Town)
• Solitude can be frightening because it invites us to meet a stranger we think we may not want to know–ourselves.–Melvyn Kinder
• Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.–Abraham Cowley
• Solitude gives birth to the original in us.–Thomas Mann
• Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.–James Russell Lowell
• …solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition…–Amelia Barr

A Job for Roy–Murphy’s Law or Divine?

Times right now are hard for many people. Layoffs, foreclosures, poor health, and family breakups plague people of all ages and cause many to feel utter despair, while others exude joy and peace in spite of these adversities. My friend Roy is such a person. Even though the vicissitudes of life have kicked him a lot lately he carries a smile on his face and speaks a peaceful word to everyone.

We met last summer at the local employment office. While searching online for work I heard a melodious baritone voice make the following inquiry from a nearby computer, “Do you have a pencil I may use?”

Looking up from my computer monitor, I surveyed the room for the source of this wondrously resonant voice. Directly across from where I was seated was Roy, a slender, modestly-dressed gentleman who, like me, was out of work. This gentleman appeared to be someone well-acquainted with hard physical labor, yet he spoke as a genteel scholar with flawless grammar.

Curious, I inquired as to the type of work he was seeking. He informed me that he was searching for ministerial jobs across the southeastern U.S. Roy is a minister now, but in his former life he was a university professor and an assistant to the Governor of the State of Florida. Previously married with a fine house and furnishings, Roy now lives a simple life unfettered by most of the stuff that the rest of us have, want to have, or used to have. The uninformed observer would say that Roy was down on his luck, but Roy would never say that.

Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times

Face to the wind on Flickr - Photo Sharing--by Ian@NZFlickr Great inspiration for the new year (2010) Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times —By Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Mis estimados: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for “good” in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, “the new normal,” the grotesquerie of the week. It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people’s worlds and beliefs more. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people. …You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet … I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is — we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised since childhood for this time precisely. …I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. I would like to take your hands for a moment and assure you that you are built well for these times. Despite your stints of doubt, your frustrations in arighting all that needs change right now, or even feeling you have lost the map entirely, you are not without resource, you are not alone. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. In your deepest bones, you have always known this is so. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless. …We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over – brought down by naiveté, by lack of love,

The Guru said, Success = SPLAT ++

Here are excerpts of an encouraging article. It’s a short capsule of the very incredible story of Jean-Dominique Bauby. Also read the last anecdote about the guru and the traveler. Simple yet very meaningful.

—Happypizza

NEVER GIVE UP

French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a massive stroke in December 1995. Twenty days later, the 43-year-old father of two awoke from a coma to discover the only muscles in his body unaffected by the stroke were those of his left eye. By blinking, he was able to make clear that although his flesh was unresponsive, his mind was unimpaired.
Through an amazing process, Bauby was soon able to communicate. A special chart was devised that listed the letters of the alphabet based on frequency of usage. As letters were pointed to, Bauby would blink to indicate his selection and thus spell out his communication.

Undaunted by his debilitating setback, Bauby continued to write.He worked daily in three-hour shifts, blinking his thoughts one letter at a time as a secretary pointed to the chart. Though the process was painfully slow, by the end of the summer of 1996, Bauby had “dictated” the text of a 137-page book. Titled “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” Bauby’s book was published in 1997. In it, he shares the experience of possessing a healthy mind that is trapped in a paralyzed body. He compares his own body to a diving bell – a mere container, providing only life support – in which his soul exists like a caged butterfly. I find Bauby’s determination to embrace life in spite of his tragic circumstance inspiring.

Winston Churchill is another leader worthy of admiration. The indomitable statesman stirred the hearts of the British during the dark days of World War II. It was Churchill’s “Never, never, never, never give up” attitude that enabled him to see beyond bombed – out buildings and smoldering rubble and envision a victorious England
Nelson Mandela possessed a determined “never give up” attitude toward life. He rose to become the leader of his nation after spending nearly half his life incarcerated. Unjust prison chains did not discourage him, nor did the stark reality of a date with death daunt him. He faced every obstacle with his goal clearly fixed in his mind, and his captors could not take from him the one thing they most sought – his freedom of thought and personal choice.The aforementioned men have one thing in common. They refused to give up on perusing a goal in spite of the fact that each encountered overwhelming and discouraging difficulties in life.

 

Which Way is Success?

Award winning cartoonist, Jules Feiffer, once presented a sketch that captures well the spirit of these men. The cartoon begins with a man encountering a guru sitting at a fork in the road:“Which way is success?” the man asks. The stoic sage points down the path to his left. The man, thrilled at the prospect of easy success, rushes off in the appropriate direction. From the distance comes a loud SPLAT! The man reappears. He is bruised and tattered. Again he asks the guru, “Which way is success?” Once again the wise man says nothing. He simply points down the path to his left. The man quickly races down the path a second time. From the distance comes a much louder SPLAT! The man returns crawling on his hands and knees. He is bloody and beaten. He yells at the guru, “Twice I have asked you about the path to success. Both times I followed your directions and both times all I have gotten is splatted!” He screams at the top of his lungs, “No more pointing, talk to me!” The wise man calmly replies, “Success is that way. It is just a little past SPLAT.”

 

Jean-Dominique Bauby was debilitated by a stroke. SPLAT!

Winston Churchill faced the ruthless Nazi war machine.SPLAT!

Nelson Mandela was beaten, imprisoned, and faced a death sentence. SPLAT!

Though each man encountered severe setbacks, they did not quit. Although they were knocked down, they refused to stay down. Although the faced tremendous odds, they rose above and overcame. They kept going, kept fighting, refused to give up, and persevered past the splats in their lives.

Faith and persistence in the face of adversity is the key to success. It doesn’t matter what obstacle you face, what disease or disability you confront, what setback you encounter. No matter how you’ve failed, or think you’ve failed, success is there for you if you’ll hang on, keep going, and continue to fight – just past what may look like failure to you.
Splat happens. Whatever shape, form or fashion it takes in your life, don’t quit.

Remember, success is just a little past splat!