On Solitude Part 2

Day 51

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.“ - Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Self-Reliance

I am writing this as I fly back home, having left Finland over twenty four hours ago. My period of solitude by myself has ended. I find that in one sense I look forward to it, to talking to people again and to the experience of other people again, to the news I have missed and the camaraderie I have not had – but I also find that I am, a bare few hours after having left my solitude, tired of bothering. At one and the same time, I find that I want and don't want, that when I was alone I looked forward to being with people again, but now that I am with people – surrounded by people, talking to people, that I miss being alone already. I suppose that this is not unexpectedly surprising, and something I have experienced before, which many of us have. I feel also that his part, this first part of what I am trying to write on an airplane, seems to be a bit of a trope, words to say that of course seems right and which remarks on the feelings and thoughts which one has correctly, but also does not say really anything new, is not some thing which leads on. I feel that writing is a bit stilted, that I want to first describe my surroundings, analyze my feelings, and come to a have a firm basis to really start writing.

I wrote last time that I found that I was either able to talk to people and be sociable, or to be alone and write philosophy. My philosophy so far has for mainly been focused on myself, on my own thoughts, and on my own notes. I have mentioned the writings of others, and written down quotes from books I am reading, or books that I had read before, which managed to stay in my memory. Books and quote, ideas and possibilities which were, for the most part, in me and part of the world that was already around me when I began to write. Of course the world has changed, of course my sitting and thinking alone, I have managed to get through some trials and difficulties in putting down my thoughts in writing, in clarifying what I intended to say and what I thought, but didn't realize I had thought – or what was in my thought. However, note that while I wrote my own thoughts, and talked about my own feelings and history, that I also included some of the thoughts of others. My writing is by me and for me first of all, yet is also a collection of many experiences, many of the thoughts and idea of other people which I have encountered.

As I fly, I notice things, both around me and in me. Around me, the place I go changes. The languages on the signs change, the languages which people speak, the looks and feel of the people changes. These are the physical changes, the noticeable and the ones which I can write down and seem unbiased, seem to be just stating facts. I place my expression of my surroundings in vague form, and there are many who would agree with me that my description is right, and does a good job of describing those around me – after all, what have I said except that there were some changes in my surroundings as we changed positions? Within that statement, am I correct? Is it not possible that I am hallucinating, or lying, or that for some reason or another that my tale is not correct in the most exact form that one may view it – so what of it? It is still a description of the world around me, still a description of what might be, still a description which can be communicated to you. Is it true or correct, useful or useless?

I also observe the people around me, the personas and groups. I place them into categories, I have ideas about people whom I have only glimpsed – When in Finland, I assume that people mostly speak Finnish. I observe that people are mostly silent, and so I do not do more than say hello to the person besides me. As I move west, the people change, the majority of them do at least. I start to have an understanding not only of individual persons, to have things which are assumptions, but seem to me to be reasonable assumptions. The further west I go, the louder the people are, the more they talk to each other on the plane. There is a feeling about me of what sort of community I have entered into, what sort of a place I have come to. The way I look or don't look people in the eye, the way I am silent or full of speech, I find that these change on a spectrum as I move around. I am still me, still mostly quiet, and mostly talking to myself. Yet – something I notice has changed, something that is based on my perception of the place I a in, of what I should do, of how I should act. It is not so different from the place I was, but it is also very different.

I have different fear and worries. In Finland I didn't speak the language, it was cold and dark when I was traveling to me plane, and if I missed my flight it would be incredibly hard and expensive to get home in good time. Once I arrived in my home county, the issue become changed to concerns about the place I was, the people I was dealing with. I no longer had to worry about not being able to communicate in my native tongue, to having grave consequences for missing my flight, or to being stuck outside overnight in the cold next to a train-station two hundred kilometers from the nearest airport. Now I worried about problems I could encounter which were more familiar to me, things like problems with security at the airport, to car crashes, to people becoming offended over something, Its ridiculous a little, to worry about different things in different place, when really those places are not so different after all – perhaps it is not so much the place in a geographical sense, but rather the place that it holds in my mind, the way I think about it. I find that I am effected by the world around me. This of course is just what I said happens, that the forces of reality, of whatever it is that is changing around me though I know not for sure its actual form, do effect the world, and thus me.

Shortly after I wrote this, when the plane lifted off, there were children around me who were flying for the first time. I don't remember my first time flying, I think that I was very young. I don't remember 'a' first time flying either though, a particular moment where I too stared out the window in amazement. I found myself thinking now as I fly about how grand it all is, about how to fly in the clouds was a dream of mankind for many thousand years, and a dream which was only been achieved in a time period between now and then, in which a person might almost have lived. I can look at pictures of earlier planes. I can also hear stories of skydiving, of paragliding, of spaceships which reach the moon. Now to me, with my knowledge of history and my awareness of ancient legends, flight seems not a miracle, but an achievement. Yet, as I see jaws drop in amazement, as I feel my stomach drop when we lift off, as I see the planet lined up beneath me, I also feel – I feel amazement, I feel wonder, I feel happiness. I feel these myself, and I also feel this to see children be amazed. Perhaps like me they will soon forget the experience, to grow up a bit and leave the vaguer experiences behind, to let them turn into mists, to be remembered only through the stories of others, and the recollection of something which they too knew, but have lost, upon seeing another take joy in flight.

Like I know just seeing one small interaction around me on the flight, and just as I think from reading all my books, my ideas are not entirely made up. They are not entirely make-believe, not entirely something like a knight which has been made by us, which is the result of choices. One feels and understands that there are connections, that the world I live in is, yes, one where I have a point of view and an understanding which is mine. One also where there are dread forces which lay upon us, which direct and force us in ways. There are hopes of arriving home, fears of running into authority, gladness at seeing friends. There are reasoned thought, times where I consider flight times and the cost of food, very sensible things which I need to get right in order to fly. There are also many things of this sort which others do and I know not of. Things which I can and do imagine, which I believe I can test and see for myself, the instruments that allow the pilots to fly the plane, the long series of work which led to the construction and placement of the seat I am sitting on, the lives and histories of those around me which led them to be here. It feel fated, like behind all this complexity and all these difficulties, behind the history of mankind and the choices that each individual person made to get on this plane and take this flight, that we must be connected in some way, Must be part of a grand design, possibly one drawn either by the playwright or one by the actors. You escape a sense of nihilism, you feel a camaraderie with all persons. At the same time, you don't – you say hello, you talk a little, you communicate and experience the plane ride together, but we are also aware, as the energy of boarding and takeoff dissipates and the plane grows silent once again, as babes fall asleep and people turn on their phones, that much is going on which we don't noticeably see. Could we talk to these people on the plane and learn something of their thoughts? We think we could. We think the same of the stranger on the street as the cousin which we have not seen in five year – that we could. Perhaps we are rebuffed, perhaps like me we are often too afraid to talk, to unclear on how to begin, to aware that soon we will leave this place behind and possibly never see any of these folk around us ever again.

To be able to be yourself in the midst of many – what is that? We are in the midst of many all the time, in the midst of history in the midst of our experiences of other people, with their voices and their thoughts in our heads. We are in the midst of people in other ways, physically and mentally, having experiences due to their actions, and worries due to what actions we think they might take. I find that I tend to remain more silent around other people then I do when I am by myself – at least, that is, until I get to know them. After meeting relatives and friends on this trip I am able to talk, able to say interesting things and to babble for hours about many things, about news and events. I can play games, I can catch up on gossip, I can ask questions – I speak, but each time I speak it is different. What we talk about with friends is different than what we tend to talk about with relatives. Sometimes this is due to topical knowledge, where the new video game is a constant topic at one dinner-table,, and never talked about at the next. Sometimes this is topic appropriateness. There is speech by some of my fiends which is not polite enough for a dive-bar, let alone a Christmas dinner with the folks. I try not to engage to an extent, but I also find that my mode of speech changes depending on who I am talking to. Polite for formal, direct to the point or with a polite aside first perhaps. I wonder how this comes out in my writing. As I write this, as I place down words in the midst of many, as nobody on this plane reads these words right now except for me, what form am I using? As a college professor might ask: who is the intended audience?

I find that being around people pushes you in a direction, that company has a force which can be felt. Sometimes this forces pushes you to act a certain way, or not to act a certain way. There are times when what is important is not so much the outside force, but the resulting push-back from within the self. All of us bend a little, speak in certain ways, certain languages. We introduce topics at the appropriate times,or in the appropriate way or place. We write in order that we may be understood, choosing the method and form of address which we think will accomplish that – most of the time. Sometimes, perhaps often, we disassemble. We say things obliquely. As we speak with words, we also make a face, direct our eyes. We communicate more or less than we intended to when we started speaking. We say things which are true, lies, and truth and lies. Just like how we speak to ourselves at time, just how we hide from ourselves.

How to use this force, how to have it help us instead of hinder us? I am more hesitant to reach out, to begin speaking, to really dare and try to get my point across here. I think that if I perhaps began from a well-known point, form something familiar, and change things only step by step, little by little, that it would be easier to talk. Shouldn't we try to communicate from common ground? If we have to scream at all, have to make a noise and get your voices out, then don't we want to be heard and responded to? I wonder about that, about how much our speech demands a response. We can respond to ourselves, we can speak to yourselves and listen to ourselves. This is for the most part what I have been doing these last two months of solitude.

I have chosen to go back outside though. Perhaps I am not so brave that I will shout a thought from the rooftops and try to push people to seriously consider them. I think that I found it much easier to think my thoughts than to write down my notes, to take down a quote or remember the thoughts of a philosopher, than I did to write down my thoughts all in one long piece, all in a single bunch of 100,000 words which, though incomplete and messy, is still certainly mine. I recognize the thoughts of others, the ideas of Emerson and Wittgenstein, the concerns of Descartes, the legacy of Plato, in my works and behind my thoughts. I do not feel quite alone, or quite as if what I have said is something that nobody has ever said before. This to not feel alone in this way is both a blessing and a curse.

To not be totally alone in my thoughts means that I can rely on other people a bit. I can point to this quote or that idea by some famous person who is highly regarded, to a book with acclaim and historicity, and say – look, here too are my words, if in a different form. Here is the giant I stand upon, here is the rock in the ground I am standing on which is at least as solid as anything else. You feel a sense of pride, that even if you have gotten things wrong, that you at least shall not be shot down in space, but upon a planet you recognize. To be shot down though, to not fly but to fall, what a worry that is.

We find that once we have said something to somebody, placed a gem of the world which is definitive and not a wispy thought which blows away with waking or a memory which fades with time, but something that appears to also partake of the the force of reality in some way, to be words you can find again after having let them go, is a large step to take. It is one of the most difficult steps that one can take. To intend to move and to actually move are different things, to create something in the world and have it be judged is a horrible thing, Are we standing on a rock, do we have some giant behind us, can we point to a grand figure and that just as he is worthy of affirmation, so am I? Do we have a decade of work and thought behind us, a depth of feeling and an overcome period of trial? The world may care, or the world may say “so what?”

If the world cares, if the people around you, the forces of nature which effect you, the significance of the words to the future you, are remarked upon, have seemingly the force which goes in the world from we know not where, then what do they think of you? For everything which can be said, there is someone to take offense at it. For everything which can be said, there is some way in which it can be wrong, disastrous and terribly wrong. To know one is a fool is bad enough, but to be revealed a dunce? This causes doubt, this makes us worry. This is the sort of thing which tests one. This is something we encounter all the time of course. We catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of our eye and thought it was somebody we knew, but when we turn to look, nothing appears. We think that we have imagined it. We write down a mathematical or a scientific theory, and we test it out, we try to see if there is someway we can prove it, even if only derivativly. If someone tells us we are wrong, then we can say to them that no, they are the wrong ones. We can say we have proof, we can say that following this logic, this answer comes out. You may disagree with us about some fact or another, but our thought is still a definite and worthy thing. We can say this because we have a clear vision of it, because it say something about the world, because it is a point in logical space or a limit in possibility space which we can draw out and talk about, which we can put down or demonstrate, and that seems ot part of the force or reality in some way. If you are right, then even if people shoot you down now, you will be vindicated eventually. Chance will become victory, through the mechanisms of fate.

What though of inner philosophy? Of thoughts which arise in you that are in some way your's alone? Of ways of understanding the world which make sense to you, but which to others seems nonsense, gibberish, full of mistake, dull-minded, arrogant claptrap? To be talked down at because what we say is due to an actual mistake can accepted with grace, because you can be shown where and how you are wrong. The logic field leads there or doesn't, the paradox comes out or not, the world is stable or it falls, by chance or fate. It takes time but one can learn, and one does. This though is teaching, and a teacher had best be very sure before he starts down that path, because everybody can be wrong. If there is always another side to what can be said, then to be taught is also to believe, to trust that the teacher is right, to allow their influence to stabilize the world for you. To trust that is to trust yourself, to make the decision to hold on to that pillar. If you trust hold on tight, if you doubt, let it go – trust yourself, and to trust yourself, know yourself, and to know yourself know the world.

The wonderful world, and the cruel world. To be thought wrong because you are is bad enough, is a shock to the world which breaks it and reforges it, one event we often experience. How dangerous though to make a mistake, to follow a lie. I say not a liar, but a lie – we can also be called wrong by people who do not understand, or who do not accept. It has been said that reason can win out, but to teach those who do not want to be taught is a trial I have failed at before. To trust those who meant well, who were very sure of themselves, who might be educated and sure with acclaim and historicity, to touch upon power and to bring succor, is a mistake. If we shall cling to some pillars because of our trust in ourselves, then we shall also abandon some pillars held up by those we do not trust. We are attacked by this, and we while we flinch, we do not bow. Sir you have made a touch, and I shall check my wound to see if it is bleeding, if it needs to heal, if it matters or not. I could also do what I accuse others of; I could become like the enemy I fight. I can say that I do not believe them, that they are wrong, that they do not understand. I can doubt them, and think less of them as bringers of truth. I can deny the touch and continue on with the duel as it it was not there, as if the vital force of my thought was not actually bleeding out, leaving red on the floor for anyone with eyes to see, eyes which look from a certain point of view. I don't intend to do that. I would rather end my solitude where I began it, by saying that “Sir, you are right. I do believe you, I believe you point out something important. I am a fool and a bad judge of teachers, and so I know not which teachers to accept and which to reject. Therefore, I will accept all teachers, I will believe that all points of view, that all lies, are really just truths in a different form. Everything is real, and so to are you. You are not totally wrong. I give you high praise – and low warning; For the truth revealed may not be the truth intended.”

About others, about ourselves, we can be mistaken. For all the faults that we see around us, we can also find those faults in us; But along with the vice comes the virtue. We are free to travel where we wish, to take the first, the second, or third, or an infinitely different amount of paths. To choose one road already firm and clear in the ground, or to make our own. To enter and leave paths as we will, to make lines in fields full of rye, and to jump off the cliffs and discover that we can fly. Or perhaps we fall, and wake again in another world or not at all. I do not know. I do know that I hope not to be the catcher or the caught – I would rather be the child running, to have the freedom to ignore the o-so-wise words of my guardians. The freedom to dare, and to make foolish mistakes – To value freedom above all things. I write to communicate, to speak to myself. I also write to communicate, to speak to others and the world. I wish for a response as I fear for a response. I do, and know not, really, what I do. I only guess, I only pick up a few pieces of advice on the way and try to find my way in the dark.