Solitude
Reading through William Deresiewicz lecture on "Solitude and Leadership" in theamericanscholar.org, I could'nt help but utter: "Ah, there it is... the yoke of my existence. My complete lack of talent for maneuvering."
Not that I would consider myself "leadership" material. I wouldn't dare be so presumptuous. But I have made similar discoveries over the years with regards to the value of failure, solitude, self-discovery, friendship and the myths of multitasking.
excerpt 1: "Me: no talent for maneuvering"
Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going.
exerpt 2: "The myth of multitasking"
The investigators wanted to figure out how today’s college students were able to multitask so much more effectively than adults. How do they manage to do it, the researchers asked? The answer, they discovered—and this is by no means what they expected—is that they don’t.
excerpt 3: "The value of deep friendship"
So solitude can mean introspection, it can mean the concentration of focused work, and it can mean sustained reading. All of these help you to know yourself better. But there’s one more thing I’m going to include as a form of solitude, and it will seem counterintuitive: friendship. Of course friendship is the opposite of solitude; it means being with other people. But I’m talking about one kind of friendship in particular, the deep friendship of intimate conversation. Long, uninterrupted talk with one other person. Not Skyping with three people and texting with two others at the same time while you hang out in a friend’s room listening to music and studying. That’s what Emerson meant when he said that “the soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude.”
It's a lengthy lecture, but well worth the read. Make yourself a cuppa, sit back, slow down, think... and make up your own mind.
I'll conclude with this quote from Dr. Ester Buchholz:"Life's creative solutions require alonetime. Solitude is required for the unconscious to process and unravel problems. Others inspire us, information feeds us, practice improves our performance, but we need quiet time to figure things out, to emerge with new discoveries, to unearth original answers."
