To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet. - Charles Caleb Colton
I feel like if I would actually try and do that, that I would learn more about myself, but I would be scared of what I would learn. Would I like the things that I learn? Would I be able to use them to help make me a better person? I think that every person unconsciously is scared to find out who they really are. I believe that all these texts relate back to plentitude and how we cannot live without our possesions. I know that we are all capable of living without them, its the simple fact that we do not want to. We think that we "need" our facebooks and our texting capabilites when in reality it is just something extra to clutter up our lives. Lets say it takes you ten seconds to answer a text and you send 400 texts in one day. That comes out to about 66 minutes of your day that you wasted that could have been spent doing something else. Even I realize that. I've been trying to cut back on the amount of time that I spend on facebook and on my phone because I realize that all it does it waste time. Thoreau tells us that we should "simplify" our lives but I think that we complicate them without even realizing it. We say we have no time to study but you waste about an hour of your day texting and many more on facebook.
Your points about learning who you are when you're alone really struck me! I am somewhat scared of what I might learn about myself if I were to be alone for an extended period of time as well. But at the same time I am very intrigued about what I would learn too! I do love my alone time, but not without at least a book to keep me distracted. Being alone and having nothing to distract you but your thoughts and hidden desires is a rare thing.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t think I would be scared to learn about myself but I also don’t think I would ever like to be alone. I do love your quote and thoughts. I have spent allot of time alone over the years of my husband being deployed. We figured out in are first 3 years of marriage we were still considered newlyweds he was gone that much. I would work and go home to an empty house and all I had was the TV or a book but living at the beach that wasn’t the first thing I went too. Sometimes I would just sit on the porch listen to the waves and think for hours. I did this again when I live in Coronado, CA my second time living at the beach. It’s funny the way you act and live your life in different places. Here in Shippensburg allot of people know nothing about the computer or internet they don’t have it in their home. Verse Chicago every kid knew how to turn on a computer at age 5 and go to a website like webkinz. So I agree the way we live and the society around us dose in reflect the amount of technology utilized. I agree that allot of us in the world especially Americans are full of plenitude and that we think we need what we really don’t need just want.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you used your qoute. It is so true that solitiude takes courage, not many people can go without everyday social interaction. I think that after a while of solitude your sanity is put in danger, people need socialization, its what keeps society moving as a whole. I completely agree that living in the woods would be possible, but at the same time very demanding and hard. When you said you might not want to know what you could learn about yourself, but how do you know that it isn't some information that could help you in the future? What i like most is how you are trying to cut down on Facebook and texting, these are two things that take many students time, time they should be spending in the library or dong homework, so needless to say if others took on your point of view it could be very helpful.
ReplyDeleteI believe that we all have the ability to stop using facebook or twitter or other useless things that consume a lot of our time. You are right though, we choose not too. We just try to cut back. Personally I don't want to give up texting or facebook, I like interacting with people and seeing how people are and what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteI liked what you said about being alone. Being alone gives you time to wonder about things and your mind is constantly going. If you've had a bad experience, it's going to replay over and over again in your mind if you're alone. I go both ways though, I like being alone but at the same time I don't.
I love that quote! It is so true, I would rather spend time with someone I absolutely can't stand than spend an extended amount of time by myself. I don't like being alone it is scary to me, I over think myself when I am alone. It does take a lot of courage to be alone even relationship wise, for some people they would rather be in a harmful relationship than be alone.
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