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The Rewards of Living a Solitary LifeThe Rewards of Living a Solitary LifeThe other day an acquaintance of mine, a gregarious and charming man, told me he had found himself unexpectedly alone in New York for an hour or two between appointments. He went to the Whitney and spent the "empty" time looking at things in solitary bliss. For him it proved to be a shock nearly as great as falling in love to discover that he could enjoy himself so much alone.What had he been afraid of, I asked myself? That, suddenly alone, he would discover that he bored himself, or that there was, quite simply, no self there to meet? But having taken the plunge, he is now on the brink of adventure; he is about to be launched into his own inner space, space as immense, unexplored, and sometimes frightening as outer space to the astronaut. His every perception will come to him with a new freshness and, for a time, seem startlingly original. For anyone who can see things for himself with a naked eye becomes, for a moment or two, something of a genius. With another human being present vision becomes double vision, inevitably. We are busy wondering, what does my companion see or think of this, and what do I think of it? The original impact gets lost, or diffused. "Music I heard with you was more than music."* Exactly. And therefore music itself can only be heard alone. Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience. "Alone one is never lonely: the spirit adventures, walking/In a quiet garden, in a cool house, abiding single there." Loneliness is most acutely felt with other people, for with others, even with a lover sometimes, we suffer from our differences of taste, temperament, mood. Human intercourse often demands that we soften the edge of perception, or withdraw at the very instant of personal truth for fear of hurting, or of being inappropriately present, which is to say naked, in a social situation. Alone we can afford to be wholly whatever we are, and to feel whatever we feel absolutely. That is a great luxury! For me the most interesting thing about a solitary life, and mine has been that for the last twenty years, is that it becomes increasingly rewarding. When I wake up and watch the sun rise over the ocean, as I do most days, and know that I have an entire day ahead, uninterrupted, in which to write a few pages, take a walk with my dog, lie down in the afternoon for a long think (why does one think better in a horizontal position?), read and listen to music, I am flooded with happiness. I am lonely only when I am overtired, when I have worked too long without a break, when for the time being I feel empty and need filling up. And I am lonely sometimes when I come back home after a lecture trip, when I have seen a lot of people and talked a lot, and am full to the brim with experience that needs to be sorted out. Then for a little while the house feels huge and empty, and I wonder where my self is hiding. It has to be recaptured slowly by watering the plants, perhaps, and looking again at each one as though it were a person, by feeding the two cats, by cooking a meal. It takes a while, as I watch the surf blowing up in fountains at the end of the field, but the moment comes when the world falls away, and the self emerges again from the deep unconscious, bringing back all I have recently experienced to be explored and slowly understood, when I converse again with my hidden powers, and so grow, and so be renewed, till death do us part. - May Sarton 某日，我的一位喜好交际、颇有魅力的朋友告诉我，他意外地发现自己竟然能够在纽约这样的地方，在约会间隔的那一两个小时一人独处而没感到寂寞。带着独处赐予的巨大幸福感，他去了惠特妮博物馆，度过了所谓的空闲时光。他很惊奇自己居然能够如此享受独处的时光，而这种惊奇跟坠入爱河的感觉一样美妙。那么他害怕什么哪？我暗自揣测。是因为他突然只身一人，倍感无聊，或仅仅是因为失去了自我，无处寻觅？但是既然决定一博，他已经在冒险的边缘。他蓄势待发，准备准备航向自己的内心世界。这种茫茫无际，神秘莫测，甚至令人莫名惊恐的感受正如宇航员对于外层空间的感受一样。他的所见所闻将会给他带来全新的体验，有时甚至是前所未有的惊奇。对于任何人，他能够用肉眼探视世界，他或多或少是个天才。有人陪伴，视野不可避免的成为复视。我们一直忙着猜测同伴的看法和想法，及自己的想法。最初的影响已经消失或是力量大减。我与你一起欣赏的音乐不再仅仅是音乐。确实如此。因此音乐仅能独享。独处是个人风格的调料，它能激发出人生的每次体验的纯真风味。
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