from James Baldwin (via Maria):

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/20/james-baldwin-the-creative-process/

Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

self-talk as data.. as we are set free to be us/artists.. all of us..

Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world. There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed. None of these things can be done alone. But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

[..]

It is for this reason that all societies have battled with the incorrigible disturber of the peace — the artist. …And it is absolutely inevitable that when a tradition has been evolved, whatever the tradition is, the people, in general, will suppose it to have existed from before the beginning of time and will be most unwilling and indeed unable to conceive of any changes in it. They do not know how they will live without those traditions that have given them their identity. Their reaction, when it is suggested that they can or that they must, is panic… And a higher level of consciousness among the people is the only hope we have, now or in the future, of minimizing human damage.

In a sentiment that Jeanette Winterson would come to echo decades later — “Art … says, don’t accept things for their face value; you don’t have to go along with any of this; you can think for yourself.”

[..]

The artist is distinguished from all other responsible actors in society — the politicians, legislators, educators, and scientists — by the fact that he is his own test tube, his own laboratory, working according to very rigorous rules, however unstated these may be, and cannot allow any consideration to supersede his responsibility to reveal all that he can possibly discover concerning the mystery of the human being. 

[..]

Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover’s war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real.

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from David Whyte‘s consolations:

2

alone

the body is inhabited in a different way when we are alone than when we are with others..  alone, we live in our bodies as a question rather than a statement

curiosity over decision making .. maté trump law.. et al

the permeability of being alone asks us to re imagine ourselves, to become impatient w ourselves, to tire of the same old story and then slowly hour by hour, ,to start to tell the story in a diff way as other parallel ears, ones we were previously unaware of , begin to listen to us more carefully in the silence.. for a solitary life to flourish, even if it is only for  few precious hours, aloneness asks us to make a friend of silence, and just as importantly.. to inhabit that silence in our own particular way, to find our very own way  into our own particular and even virtuoso way of being alone

alone ness.. silence.. self-talk as data.. quiet enough to see

listen

quiet in own room

3

to inhabit silence in our aloneness is to stop telling the story altogether.. aloneness always leads to rawness and vulnerability, to a fearful simplicity , to not recognizing and to now knowing, to the wish to find any company other than that not knowing, unknown self,..

one of the elemental dynamics of self compassion is to understand our deep reluctance to be left to ourselves

perry sleep alone law

to be alone is not necessarily to be absent form the company of others, the radical step is to let ourselves alone, to cease the berating voice that is constantly trying to interpret and force the story from too small and too complicated a perspective. even in company a sense of imminent aloneness is a quality that can be cultivated..

4

to feel alone in the presence of others is also to understand the singularity of human existence whilst experiencing the deep physical current that binds us to others.. whether we want that binding or no.. aloneness can measure togetherness even thru a sense of distance

5

at the beginning of the 21st cent.. to feel alone or want to be alone is deeply unfashionable: to admit to feeling alone is to reject and betray others, as if they are not good company, and do not have entertaining, interesting lives of their own to distract us, and to actually seek to be alone is a radical act; to want to be alone is to refuse a certain kind of conversational hospitality and to turn to another door, and another kind  of welcome, not necessarily define by human vocabulary

hospitality – constant hospitality law

rumi words law

no words ness

monet to see law: ‘to see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.’
Claude Monet

it may be that time away from a work, an idea of ourselves, or a committed partner is the very essence of appreciation for the other.. to be able to let them alone as we let ourselves lone, to live something that feels like a choice again, to find ourselves lone as a looked for achievement, not a state to which we have been condemned

off script.. beyond finite set of choices et al

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Medium (@Medium) tweeted at 5:27 AM – 31 Jan 2020 :
Breaking news for introverts: New research on the “social biome” shows that solitude is crucial for well-being. (via @forgemag) https://t.co/re9e9lwrkI (http://twitter.com/Medium/status/1223221323092103168?s=17)

Hall says, but “the one that had the strongest empirical support was that when you’re alone and content that way, that’s a great indicator that you’re socially healthy.”

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