How Solitude Feeds the Brain
The world can reach out for you, without thought or plan and, in reaching, reach into your depths. If you have ever sat quietly listening to the sound of the rain, you might have had the experience that after a while you can’t tell what is rain and what is you. It can be an intimate sound, as if the rain were falling through your chest. Sometimes i
... See moreJohn Tarrant • Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life
AN ARTIST’S RELATION TO SOLITUDE: An artist must make time for the long periods of solitude Solitude is extremely important Away from home, Away from the studio, Away from family, Away from friends An artist should stay for long periods of time at waterfalls An artist should stay for long periods of time at exploding volcanoes An artist should stay
... See moreMarina Abramovic • Walk Through Walls: A Memoir
I love the idea of solitude being a gift. I think we can be afraid of being lonely, but if you figure out a way to own it and see it as a treasure and a pleasure and a joy, then it can be quite comforting. I have a place to go in my head that’s just my place, and no one ever gets to that place. I value that alone time so much. I wouldn’t be able to
... See moreJami Attenberg • I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home
There is something banal and everyday about solitude. Even in company we spend much of our time alone, absorbed in our innermost thoughts and feelings, quietly talking to ourselves. Whether we live in Manhattan or the middle of nowhere, this is our condition.
Stephen Batchelor • The Art of Solitude
In “Nature” — perhaps his finest essay, for being the most all-encompassing and spiritually lucid — he considers what solitude actually means, refuting the common conception of it as a kind of self-isolation from other selves behind the walls of seclusion, for even the thinking mind, the writing mind, the creating mind is a symposium of outside voi... See more