No Good Trying

I absolutely thrive on being alone. Very alone. Pierre knows this, is much the same and sent me a video titled The Terrifying Intelligence of People Who Choose to Be Alone, and it rolled into the Alan Watts video above. I’ve always admired Watts, and while I found both videos interesting and true in their own ways, they got me to thinking…

Dangerous.

NYUCK NYUCK. Why is that always the joke? “Oh no, ahm THINKIN’ It’s DaNgErOuS” is about as low as it gets in comedy. Stop. Jesus.

Anyway – to the videos. They both bore much the same sentiment:

This idea that a man who is comfortable in solitude is somehow more effective and better able to solve the world’s problems – I get it. But maybe it’s not that solitude sharpens him, but that the world becomes simpler because he becomes simpler. Alone, he’s allowed to just be.

When you strip away the effects and affects of the world – the relationships, the pressures, the stresses – things get clearer. Your thoughts flow. Life seems simpler. Because it is. Right?

That’s what we’re all chasing: simple. Unencumbered by expectations and noise. Solitude lets us be as simple and childish as we really are. Some of us might use that space to write the next great novel, invent something brilliant, or cure the epidemic of bad font usage. Others might just read comics and think up dumb jokes no one will ever hear. But if it entertains us and makes us happy, isn’t that enough?

Isn’t changing the world as simple as adding to its happiness? If we believe in a collective consciousness, then what’s good for the fingernail is good for the body.

Watts is right: great things can come to those who embrace solitude. But they don’t have to. The pressure of greatness, productivity, and growth – that’s just more outside noise. Expectation that might not actually be yours.

Not everyone has the ability to be great. But everyone has the ability to be happy.

Even if that happiness looks stupid from the outside, it’s still a contribution to the whole.

A good one.