The comforting strangeness of solitude

A guest post by Josh Pillay of Wait! Just Listen

When an essay by Josh Pillay arrives in my inbox on a Sunday afternoon, I always read it twice. On the first reading, I simply enjoy the flow of ideas that spring out from his weekly theme; he is a writer’s writer, a reader’s reader, and a thinker’s thinker, and there is rich satisfaction that I derive from the work of words well done.

On the second reading, I attend more to the subtleties of meaning behind his words: to the worlds conveyed through the classical rhetoric of his phrases, to the perspectives of the human character that are revealed in the interstices, and to the generosity of spirit that proffers an antidote to the dissonance of contemporary culture.

I often wonder how he manages to compose such consistently nuanced, eloquent and relevant prose essays on a weekly basis. Writing is hard. I imagine Josh pacing alongside the workstation like a current-day Marcus Aurelius, holding a mug of coffee aloft as he casts his gaze heavenward to admit some gem of insight into his consciousness.

I am inordinately grateful to him for contributing the exquisite meditation on solitude below.

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The eclectic world of digital media tends to have answers for many things, none more pronounced than the role it plays in connecting friends and loved ones during a time when physical distancing has become a staple part in taming the chaos attributed to a certain spiked protein. But despite the intricate network of internet cables, optic fibres and mind numbingly complex algorithmic fairy dust, there remains an aching absence of a type of technology that celebrates contemplative solitude, the seedbed of inner discovery.

Digital platforms have become seasoned soap boxes for many but they have been perhaps less useful to intuitively tap into our inner voice and the secret knowledge of ourselves. Instead since the dawn of television, media has been a conduit to experiencing a reality that exists outside of us, one that is crafted to resonate but only to the extent of igniting a desire for more consumption. In current day parlance, we call that ‘bingeing’.

Solitude however flips the focus to an inner-form of communication that thrives on its intangibility rather than concreteness — there is no media product here to buy, sell or experience. Instead, the saturated landscape of heavy mediatised content is swapped for the lightness of cosmic, formless and universal awareness of everything and yet nothing at all.

Solitude enables an excavation within, to discover the innermost vestiges of ourselves — it serves a deeper purpose in reinforcing the architecture of our character, cultivating the very value system that defines who we are, solidifying the contours of what is worth having or avoiding.

In the depths of all that is silent, far from the chaos of the human world and the accompanying drone of incessant judgements and opinions, we embark on a beautiful reacquaintance with our elemental essence — the epitome of our authentic self, unperturbed by the weight of obligation and the pressure to blindly conform.

But that inner voice remains trapped in what I’d describe as a hauntingly beautiful paradox: the more we attempt to literalise our abstract emotions or vocalise some of our most instinctual ideas to the outer world, the more difficult it is to tap into the quiet hum within (“our inner voice”) and bath in its nectar of self-knowledge.

Virginia Woolf once quite rightly stated that “One can’t write directly about the soul,” because to do so would be to subject all that is sacred to the confined laws of reality and perception. Yes, the irony is not lost on me as I sit here on a Saturday evening, penning an essay on the inner workings of our spiritual self, simultaneously arguing that words (‘my external voice’) will never do it justice — but you get my point.

Unlike the digital technologies we use to communicate, the inner voice is only conjured through conscious surrender of the medium itself and with it, our external ego and the mindless chatter of stray thoughts. Khalil Gibran mesmerisingly encapsulates this paradox between our outer and inner worlds with his usual lyrical flair:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

Image courtesy Norma Ferrari

A state of solitude grants us with the wisdom and resilience to dig through the quagmire of mental noise, material desires, unfulfilled aspirations and personal pitfalls, until we reach a realisation that life’s purpose is disarmingly singular; to cherish and celebrate (through whatever way) the values which tie the whole of humanity together.

Whilst the ennobling effects of solitude are evident to those that seek its virtues, the journey can be somewhat disorienting as we confront this silence or presumable ‘emptiness’ that we’ve been programmed to regard as limiting. The notion of silence, for example, stand in contrast to the rhetoric espoused by social media conglomerates or software evangelists that view the expression of voice and active deliberation as irrefutably essential in connecting with society. Whilst there is some practical value to these assertions, the Internet has largely facilitated an environment where speaking has become a reactionary force rather than a considered action, because to remain silent is to lose.

But if we can perhaps unlearn and re-root some of these hardened and commoditised assumptions, something wonderous begins to happen.

We become gradually at ease with spending stretches of time in contemplative solitude ever so slowly coming to grips with the fact that silence is in fact not the absence of anything but the presence of everything.

We start to understand with crystalline clarity that the worldly noises we’ve been made to embrace are simply echoes of ephemeral thoughts in the moving conveyor belt of life experiences. Solitude provides us with the unimaginable capacity tap into the boundless energy within to cherish our reason for being and celebrate our essential natures. It is a pilgrimage inward towards realising that we contain the answers to life’s most pressing questions and challenges.

All we need is some quiet.

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Volume III of Surrender Now, ‘Love & Awareness,’ will be launching right here in your inbox next weekend. Here are some excerpts from the story to come, in case you missed them.