Oasis

Oasis of Sea and Mind__________

Thoughts on solitude.

Christopher McCandliss (or Alexander Supertramp) as he lay dying in his bus in the far reaches of Alaska wrote in his journal: "Happiness must be shared." Sailing alone I spend a lot of time thinking about the "cost" of solitude and a life lived alone. I sacrifice family and relationships; comfort, ease, and safety; social, sexual, and mental stimulation. . . but do I also sacrifice the experience of happiness as well?

On the whole, I don't think so.

McCandliss had it wrong, or he wasn't ready for the experiences he faced. Not completely wrong, mind you. "Happiness" is a vagary in itself. Is it the comfort of love and pleasure of life? For some, for most, but is that perhaps not a bit superficial as a life goal? Isn't life perhaps a bit more grand than all that? If not, then McCandliss was right. How many times have I seen some marvel and looked around me to see who had shared the experience, only to find myself alone, the experience dimmed, diminished—no one could understand. This is true and this is what McCandliss learned I think. . . in the end. Beauty is magnified with solidarity.

But there is more to life than this wink and the smile, the "hey, did you see that??...amazing eh!—the life of solidarity and love. There is a depth to certain experiences that is perhaps bolstered by solitude—one is forced to commune only with his environment. And one is confronted by the precise dimensions of self. And there one learns—or I learned—that those 'precise' dimensions are hazy at best. Even in extreme solitude, one cannot escape solidarity. One man alone on a vast sea doesn't feel that way, alone as it sounds, instead he feels a part of the sea, a part of the vast pregnant world around him. This is the solidarity and communion of extreme solitude. And it is potent.

I think I am coming around to the idea that I am willing to suffer for experiences that, for me, transcend the mundane, experiences that recast my soul in their wake. I wish to see things that make me tremble. I am currently in the midst of an experience of this sort, and I may call it happiness, but in truth it is Awe. Akin to epiphany. But I am alone, shockingly alone.