{"id":5337,"date":"2017-08-17T10:34:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T10:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/08\/17\/the-point-of-solitude\/"},"modified":"2017-08-17T10:34:32","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T10:34:32","slug":"the-point-of-solitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/08\/17\/the-point-of-solitude\/","title":{"rendered":"The Point of Solitude"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 11pt;\">Thomas Merton, <em>Journals<\/em>, vol. 7, p. 276:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 11pt;\">The point of solitude is to preserve myself from a certain sort of contagion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 11pt;\">I would add that being alone is not enough if you are feeding on media dreck &#39;in solitude.&#39; For then you are exposed to the contagion of &#39;discourse&#39; that agitates but does not enlighten.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 11pt;\">Why am I fascinated by the oftentimes flaky Merton? Because he is not just a flaky fellow. And he has &#39;Sixties&#39; written all over him. Attention to his work and his shift in views is necessary for a deep understanding of that pivotal decade.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 11pt;\">His journals are a delight. There is where the man himself dwells.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#39;in solitude.&#39; For then you are exposed to the contagion of &#39;discourse&#39; that agitates but does not enlighten. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/08\/17\/the-point-of-solitude\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Point of Solitude&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,465],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-merton-thomas","category-solitude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}