Category: Solitude
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The Point of Solitude
Thomas Merton, Journals, vol. 7, p. 276: The point of solitude is to preserve myself from a certain sort of contagion. I would add that being alone is not enough if you are feeding on media dreck 'in solitude.' For then you are exposed to the contagion of 'discourse' that agitates but does not enlighten.…
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Apatheia and the News
Why follow the disturbing events of the day, thereby jeopardizing one's peace of mind, when one can do nothing about them? Apatheia and the news don't go well together. Withdrawal and retreat remain options to consider. But on the other side of the question: The temptation to retreat into one's private life is very strong. …
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Monkish Haiku
Avoid the near occasionOf unnecessary conversation.
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At the Monastery
It is delightful to be able to traverse an outdoor or indoor space without feeling obliged to greet or even acknowledge the passersby. This one can do at a monastery without fear of being taken as anti-social or unfriendly. For silence is the 'default setting' at the monastery whereas noise and idle talk are the…
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Society and Solitude
Solitude does not guarantee elevation, but society almost always insures the opposite.
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The Strange Saga of the Last True Hermit
Peter Lupu has called me a recluse. I have referred to myself as reposing in Bradleyan reclusivity. But I am a hermit only in an analogous sense. For my hermithood is but partial and participated in comparison to the plenary hermithood of this dude. He approximates unto the Platonic Form thereof. Compared to him, Seldom…
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Abstain the Night Before, Feel Better the Morning After
Do you regret in the morning the spare supper of the night before or the foregoing of the useless dessert? Do you feel bad that you now feel good and are not hung over? You missed the party and with it the ambiguity and unseriousness and dissipation of idle talk. Are you now troubled by…
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Society and Solitude
Individuals need society to socialize them and raise them from the plane of mere animality. The quality of society, however, depends on true individuals, who are made by solitude. Moses was alone on Mt. Sinai; Jesus was forty days in the desert; alone Socrates communed with his daimon; Siddartha forsook the company of the royal compound;…
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Walter Morris on Solitude
Walter Morris is an exceedingly obscure author whom the Maverick Philosopher has decided to take under his wing and rescue from total oblivion. When I get through with him at least some excerpts from his journals will be in range of the search engines. Please contact me if you know anything about this fellow. He…