SOLITUDE

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in the company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as Solitude.

                                          - Henry David Thoreau

In the hustle and bustle of city life, I need one constant company that is my own solitude. Outer world is a poor substitute when it comes to inner serenity. Hours will pass like a blip of second when I sink into myself.

When I was a bachelor for 5 years after entering into government service, I never rubbed my shoulders too much with anybody. In fact, I have a very limited number of  friends . I feel scared of having too many friends as I can't carry the burden of their expectations. In fact, the liberty or the chastity of freedom has driven me to take a step of being aloof from the crowd. I really cherish my moments in solitude than meeting anybody else.

But ordinary folks never like solitude. They term it as loneliness which is different. They usually go to others to converse issues from heaven to earth till the other person gets bored from that non-sense. When you ask such people why they do so, they argue that they don't like loneliness which means that they don't want to be in their own company.  The question here is when you don't like your own company, how can others bear you ?

Some people connote solitude with elements of spirituality. There is no denying in that. Solitude is such a silent ocean of energy that will not only churn your creative juices and also gives a higher level of awareness which helps you to go to magical realms of infinite possibilities. If you want to know the gross description of solitude, read Henry David Thoreau's magnificent Work : "Walden”. Every word of Thoreau in the chapter "Solitude" touches your soul and you will relish its prose.

On Solitude, Albert Einstein says : I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. Solitude and writing are inseparable twins. Great writing happens in the deeper chambers of your soul. I personally feel that the best inspiration comes only in solitude. It could be affirmed in the words of one wise man that "one can be instructed in society, but one can only be  inspired only in solitude".

The inventor of electric bulb Thomas A. Edison sagely says that the best thinking has been done in solitude. So do take regular chunks of solitude  to bounce back with creativity.