Montaigne, “On Solitude”

Added another 25-minute block of reading to the day to make it through the tsundoku stack, up to two hours now. Spending a mere 25 minutes a day with Montaigne's COMPLETE ESSAYS; would gladly spend more, a lifetime, perhaps – might take that long. I'm good with it.

Writing this from my room, or my area, "at the back of the shop," as Montaigne says in "On Solitude"; my office is literally the old paint shop in the back of the house; in the back of the shop in the back of the house. Montaigne, amplified across the timespace of four-plus centuries (note: this wasn't by design but by necessity – KaijuDesk would only fit through one door, the door to the paint shop, so I built my office around the desk):

"We should set aside a room, just for ourselves, at the back of the shop, keeping it entirely free and establish there our true liberty, our principle solitude and asylum." – Montaigne, "On Solitude."

A sentiment echoed by Joseph Campbell in THE POWER OF MYTH:

"You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen." - Joseph Campbell, THE POWER OF MYTH.

In this space, sacred or asylum or otherwise, my own descent or ascent into acceptance of my basic solitude (10 years now, give or take):

"Often they think they have left their occupations behind when they have merely changed them. There is hardly less torment in running a family than there is in running a whole country." – Montaigne, "On Solitude."

And:

"... it is not enough to withdraw from the mob, not enough to go to another place: we have to withdraw from such attributes from the mob as are within us. It is our own self we have to isolate and take back into possession." – Montaigne, "On Solitude."

Working on that. First step is to accept that I have absorbed attributes of the mob, the hearts and likes – it's only then that I can begin the process of returning – if I was ever there – to a possession of self; this, without falling into the trap of self-centeredness and assholery. A challenge, a lifelong one, perhaps that, if nothing else, gives me something to write about.

Listening: LIVE IN KÖLN, FEBRUARY 23 1975, by Terry Riley and Don Cherry.