~ Solitude ~

 


(from The Adventure of Being Alone by Eric Sloane)

I find comfort and peace in solitude. There are those who would live by the side of the road and watch the race of men go by, but my idea of a perfect place to live is a farmstead where I can't see another house. Even a distant chimney shatters my sense of tranquility; at night, faraway lighted windows are prying eyes watching me.

You can tell a 'loner' by his work: a writer who enjoys being alone writes as if talking to himself, and a painter of the same sort views landscapes without benefit of people to enliven the scene. My countryside subjects seldom have anyone there, and for a while I wondered if I had lost the knack of painting people. Presenting an art award to me, Louis Nizer brought that up, and I squirmed. "Sloane seldom has people in his paintings," he said. Then the famous lawyer with the gift of words delighted me. "But there is always someone in Sloane's paintings," he added. "It is you!"

Knowing the difference between alone and lonely can be more important than other things a student learns, and when I think of the time I spent with Latin, I wonder why the simple subject of living was never considered a proper school subject. The appalling number of recent dropouts, runaways and teen-age suicides might indicate the need for children to know the fine art of coping with being alone.

Solitude in youth is painful because the art of living comfortably with it has not yet been learned; it is usually only in maturity that solitude becomes delicious. At one time, when life was confusing and my mind lacked decision, I went to people for advice. I have since learned that the answers were usually within me all the while. Now when I am perplexed, I seek seclusion and, in the eloquence of silence, I wait for the replies to arrive. And they do.

( it is perfectly true, that each of us enters and leaves this world alone, but it is also true that many spend much of their allotted time here in solitude too, with only silence and the stars above for company..........)