Desert Solitude - Revisited

I'm not sure whether I ever published this post, and I have been
thinking more about it recently, interesting, more from an
antagonistic view point. So I publish it again, but with some more
meandering thoughts mixed in. There is no resolution, just questions.

I wrote this while in Chagos Archepelago. I was there, in the very
middle of the Indian Ocean all alone for 2 weeks. It was a truly
surreal experience, and an experience of solitude that is--and ever
will be--unprecedented.

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Desert Oasis, Desert 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 not wholly right, or he wasn't ready for
the experiences he faced. He was not completely wrong. "Happiness"
is a vagary in itself. Is it the comfort of love and the pleasure
of life? For some--for most, perhaps—but is that perhaps not a bit
superficial as a life goal? …your own pleasure, your own happiness? ..
Isn't life a bit more grand than all that, a bit more important? If
not, then McCandliss was right. He lost the sense of grander purpose,
of personal ideology, with the suffering of his solitude. The meaning
faded. 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 there to empathize, to
corroborate. This is true and this is what McCandliss learned I
think. . . in the end. Beauty is magnified with solidarity. Alone,
experience cannot be qualified, quantified, or otherwise measured. It
is up to the soul alone to give the experience its value. And this is
an exceedingly fragile system, as doubt ever creeps into the folds of
history and memory. Did that really happen as I remember it? Only
you know … or do you?

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. One is
forced to accept his account of his memories and experiences. And one
is confronted by the precise dimensions of self. And there one
learns—or I have learned—that those 'precise' dimensions are hazy at
best. And the question returns yet again: If I forgo the happiness of
communal love, solidarity with family and friends and the peace of
security, even the dream of a wife and family—what am I living for?
Woe… this is where I can't be a generalist; I can only speak for
myself. I am living out the ideals of my personal dreams. My ideals
are growth, perpetual change, perpetual challenge, compassion for
everything, ultimate non-judgementality, and ultimate duality. (Don't
dwell on what this means.) But what you should notice is what is
absent: happiness. Nor was raising a family part of my dreams. I
strive to be better, not happier. Smarter, stronger, more
experienced, less naïve, more forgiving, more accepting, more at peace
(in the midst of chaos). Yes, peace means more to me than happiness.

It is when I tire or am weak that I think on happiness. Or is it then
that I lose happiness. The irony is that I am happy (Is that why I
don't value it?) (This is a vicious circle again: what does happiness
mean? Am I happy being alone or not?)
But I feel the weight of growing old, the weight of the seemingly
infinite denials I have suffered from the women I so wished to love.
I believe that it is these rejections make up ¾ or my suffering, and a
larger portion of my self-deprecations. Women are at once my greatest
love and the cruelest blade … that I repeatedly impale myself upon.
Just as my wounds heal I meet another set of rapturous eyes and I draw
ever-ready blade once again. I have lived this cycle since I was 15.
I grow weary of it.
If I were wiling to sacrifice my dreams, things could be different. I
have known love, been loved. And I have walked away, continued on my
way. And I don't regret those choices. I just want everything. I
want "the one" who shares my heart and my dreams. To me that would be
happiness.

But what then would I lose? Would I lose my drive, my introspection,
my peace? I fear this, though less as the years pass. I am so
content, I sometimes fear such a change. Yet change, I know is
inevitable. I won't—I think—sail forever. Solitude I couldn't bare
in the mountains as I can at sea. Even in extreme solitude, one
cannot escape solidarity. One man alone on a vast sea doesn't feel
that way,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. But is it unique to the sea,
where you feel the inevitability of solitude? You can't jump in your
car and head to the bar to meet friends.

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.

I don't know what is right or wrong. I know what I have done—what I
have chosen—and why. I know I will continue as I always have, alone
if necessary. I only hope I don't find regret in the days further
ahead, when I am too old to bare solitude as an ideal to some "higher
motivation". What will I ever have accomplished? Will I ever know?
As a test, I have always used the allegory of a man lying in his death
bed. What does he see when the veil comes over him? …what mattered in
his life? I try to live with that in mind. Building experiences,
memories, not wasting the time. But I also find that the women I have
loved are always at the top of those memories. In short, feeling
loved. I have loved more women than I have been loved by, and the
latter are the ones that stay with me.