Quissett Harbor 2018-07-08 - sunrise
On Solitude
With advancing age, I've found myself even less able to navigate the complexities of human relationships than when I was younger, and thus I've become less inclined to seek them out, and more inclined toward solitude. Human nature is a perplexing mix of emotion and desire and trying to infer where another person is in that minefield is just too exhausting for me anymore.
Michel de Montaigne, the 16th-century blogger before there was an internet, wrote an essay about solitude that feels relevant today, nearly five centuries later. Before sharing some of his quotes, I have to acknowledge that when I read Montaigne's essays, I usually can't be sure that I know what he's trying to say. Perhaps it is the depth of his thinking or the difficulty in translating 16th-century French prose into 21st century English, or maybe I just can't follow even a simple philosophical discussion.
From Montaigne's essay, Of Solitude:
"It is not that the wise man cannot live anywhere content, yes, and alone in a palace crowd; but if he has the choice, says he, he will flee even the sight of a throng. He will endure it if need be, but if it is up to him, he will choose solitude. He does not feel sufficiently rid of vices if he must still contend with those of other men."
"There is nothing so unsociable and so sociable as man; the one by his vice, the other by his nature."
"… to live alone and do without company, let us make our contentment depend on ourselves; let us cut loose from all the ties that bind us to others; let us win from ourselves the power to live really alone and to live that way at our ease."
"We should have wife, children, goods, and above all health, if we can; but we must not bind ourselves to them so strongly that our happiness depends on them. We must reserve a back shop all our own, entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude. Here our ordinary conversation must be between us and ourselves …"
"We have a soul that can be turned upon itself; it can keep itself company; it has the means to attack and the means to defend, the means to receive and the means to give: let us not fear that in this solitude we shall stagnate in tedious idleness:
In solitude, be to thyself a throng.
Tibullus"
"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."
"He who can turn the offices of friendship and fellowship around and fuse them into himself, let him do so."
"Abandon with the other pleasures that which comes from the approbation of others; and as for your knowledge and ability, don't worry, it will not lose its effect if it makes you yourself a better man."
And at the end of his essay Montaigne cautions the reader:
"Seek no longer that the world should speak of you, but how you should speak to yourself. Retire into yourself, but first prepare to receive yourself there; it would be madness to trust in yourself if you do not know how to govern yourself. There are ways to fail in solitude as well as in company."
Montaigne advises that those who seek solitude should already be able to feel both shame and respect for themselves.
His essay is intriguing, and it took me a long time to read the nine pages. Afterward, I pondered it and went back through the underlinings and notes I'd scribbled in the margins. The one overwhelming thought I had was this: Wouldn't it be nice to sit for hours and talk to somebody else about what Montaigne was trying to say, but who, besides ourselves, is willing to make time for such a seemingly useless endeavor?
Monte