Solitude - Good or Bad?

This is not a really good time for me to be working on a blog. I just spent some time in the hospital, the old body needed a tune-up. Since then all I want to do is sleep! Not good. The question then is how do I break out of my solitude?

Usually I refer to my body as the "vehicle I live in". I know it sounds strange, but something is changing in the way I look at the world. Prior to now there was a certain harmony between me (whatever that is ?) and my body. But it is becoming clear that that relationship is changing as I grow older. There is even a greater distance from it and the harmony between us is definitely changing. Currently, I am living in a house with many windows. I can see out, but I can't get out to smell the world outside.

Interesting Eh!

In a sense this is the unconscious experience of many today. The technologies that possess us create a new 'out of the world experience'. In her book "The Virtual Self - How Our Digital Lives Are Altering The World Around Us, Nora Young sites the example of the woman who is talking on her cell phone while standing on the street. She is connected to the person she called - is she there? But she is actually present on the street.  Is she there? Notice how she is lost in conversation, and you have to go out of the way to get around her! So where is she? Is she with the person on the end of the line? On the street corner? Or somewhere else? Technology tends to disconnect us from our bodies. No wonder they don't want us to talk on our cell phones while driving!

Even Marshall McLuhan began to grasp the changes taking place. Do we have a digital double, an avatar, a simulacrum of some sort? Have we, as he suggested, extended ourselves, our body parts, such as our ears and our legs, into digital space and into a parallel world?

I can place my current existence in that conundrum! I am not sure how I got here. Is it a result of technology as suggested, or just part of the transformation into old age?  Probably a bit of both.

Please no Horns!

Solitude can be both good and dangerous. In one sense it provides an opportunity to be creative, to be free of others and take care of personal growth. When I was young it was not uncommon to go away for a few days, called a retreat, to reflect on our own being in the world. Whether we came back enlightened or not, is debatable, but it was good to get out of the office if nothing else!

On the other hand, being alone in the world can cause loneliness, unhappiness  and even despair. We need others to grow and enjoy our lives.

I for one have always enjoyed periods of being alone, not lonely! There were projects to work on, things to learn, explore the world and enjoy the solitude with good music and a quiet environment. In today's world this kind of solitude is more important than ever. It might be called making time for ourselves, and we all do it, or should do it.

But what this octogenarian body is doing is introducing me to a new and frightening view of where I am in the world today. Obviously, I have not adjusted to it. I am not on a 'retreat'. I am not making an effort to disassociate myself from my surroundings.  It seemed that  my 'domicile" not longer fits and I have to re-manage how it and me (!) are going to get along for the next few years. Am I screaming for help? Absolutely not. I see it as just another adjustment to living together with others in the world. It's just part of the aging process and I am happy I lived this long to face it's challenges. I must point out at the same time, there is a new wonderful "freedom' associated with this process and I want to use it to my advantage.

And that's Dick's View of the World this Week