Week 14 – Solitude

Dictionaries define solitude as being the state or situation of being alone, but I think the following definition of solitude may be worth seriously considering:

“A subjective state in which your mind is free from input from other minds”

~ from Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin,

authors of “Lead Yourself First”

Personally, I finally realized that the reason I wasn’t getting much writing done in my personal journal lately wasn’t because I couldn’t find the time but because it was increasingly hard to find the solitude. It took having a period of solitude to finally notice this. That relates to writing my online blog-journal too, which was easy these past few months because of the format I was using. I didn’t have to reflect and process my thoughts as much, I just had to report my goals and whether I achieved them or not. This only required a little time, but it didn’t require much solitude. Though it was very helpful to me in its own way.

“I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my “real” life again at last. That is what is strange — that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone…”

~ Poet and essayist, May Sarton

It’s strange observing the world today versus when I was growing up. It’s too easy to have the influence of other minds all the time now. Music, podcasts, social media, TV, etc. We can have them on all the time, in this “connected” world, and let ourselves be distracted from the fact that we have allowed ourselves to be influenced by other minds and never give ourselves the chance to figure out our own minds. Something I was taught during my wholistic medicine journey was that the inability to be alone with your own thoughts was also a sign of poor health (imbalance). That is what prompted me to have meditation as a goal last year, because I had gotten to that stage where I was uncomfortable alone with my thoughts and I knew it was affecting me adversely.

At least now I am aware that I not only have to make the time for what is important but that I also have to create the periods of solitude for some of it as well. That makes me look back and think, “hmm, I really didn’t do those forms to the best of my ability because I didn’t have the solitude,” but that could be dangerous because I did do them to the best of my ability, in the circumstances I found myself in. If I keep waiting for perfect, it will never get done.

“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.”

~ Edward Gibbon

Numbers for the Year:

Pushups (modified): 8528 / 50,000

Situps (modified): 8423 / 50,000

Weapon Form: 226 / 1000

Hand Form: 142 /1000

Random Acts of Kindness: 72 / 1000

Sparring: 174 / 1000

Kilometres: 287 / 1609

Memorize “Mastery”:

Nurture Relationships:

Blogging: 26 / 52

Art Like it’s My Job: 45 / 252 days

Declutter my life: 23 days where some decluttering was done

Greatcoat project: still on the back burner

Improved flexibility: 16 days of doing something

Note: Been sick most of the week with something that made breathing difficult, so exercise was out of the question.