Place and positive solitude

Putting aside the brief lapse of that last post, I return to my main theme: the power of place and its role in positive solitude. It took a large part of my life to learn this, but a naturally solitary person has to replace the mechanisms by which the socially active reinforce their own sense of identity and well-being. For them, this comes mainly from feedback from others and the operation of family networks. Outside such structures an individual generates self-assessment and works through the evaluation of experience in different ways.

It is perfectly possible for an internal 'conversation' to satisfy both these processes; a constructive, friendly dialogue with myself establishes what I got or failed to get from a film, an art exhibition, a concert, for example. I don't need another or other perspectives - mine own are usually diverse - delivered in the moment, verbally by a companion. I absolutely prefer to look and think and reflect quietly. Sometimes if puzzled by my reactions or curious about some actual facet of the production, I might later go on online to reviews or personal opinions on review sites. Certainly the experience of culture is different with a companion: I have rarely felt it to be better, assuming I am not looking for a learning experience from someone with specific knowledge.

In what one might call the larger issues of existence, I have come to realise over many years of getting to know the landscape of Brittany, that place can also take the role of companion and provide the feedback and stimulus essential for quality of life for those who prefer to live in positive solitude. Being alone in nature can act as a veritable celebration of the solitary. It provides me with replenishment and fulfilment. Why?

Because outside in the forest, on the moor, beside the sea, under the night sky, I am connnected with a much older, wider network than any social group I have ever reluctantly joined. There is something deeply freeing about a relationship that is spiritually profound, but without demands, on-going, without the pressing urgency - whether something is urgent or not - that characterises much human communication.

 You get to know a place much as a person: the first encounter is tramelled by self-consciousness, but losing that through the familiarity of shared time and space, you go beyond the curtain, to a powerful sense of the minutiae of connection in every aspect of the natural world. It is also the framework in which I can best see myself as a functioning living thing, with a place, a context, a layered existence of my own. This is my feedback, my family, my network. It is strong and subtle, liberating and binding. It is always there, in this place or that, here or there, now or tomorrow.