Solitude

It is not true, as some say, that the worst is being alone with others.  The worst is being alone by yourself.  It is being with a voice within you that tells you negative things, which resolutely fails to give you support and comfort, which dislikes you.  This is the worst thing.

And if you fix this, everything else sorts itself out.  You CANNOT be alone with others, because you are never alone.  And you are much better able to find people with whom to connect.

I have odd and very abstract ways of expressing self pity.  I am this way, because I fight it constantly.  My principle is not “Be Happy”, but REJECT self pity.  This in no way assumes it doesn’t continue to come up.  It merely means you give it no space, no breathing room.

And persevering is both a negative and positive formulation.  It is positive in that you continue, but having begun, it really consists in not quitting, which also is a negative formulation.  It is what you do NOT do.

Only curiosity is truly positive.  Two Don’ts, and one Do.

In my life I have experienced many failures, many rejections, not least because I have tried and done so much.  I have ventured often, and as greatly as I could.  This has given me skin like leather, and I realize now my life has been a sort of “wax on/wax off” preparation for journeys I need to undertake.  It has been a kindness, a boon, a tonic.

Nothing is so, but our imaginings make it so.  There is not and never has been a NECESSARY linear relation between stimulus and response, other than in the most gross motor sense.

“Life is what you make it.  Always has been.  Always will be.”  Grandma Moses.