Solitude

The Germanna cohort is going to spend some time tonight talking about writing, and the importance of planning time for reflection. Two quotes from this article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, by William Dereseiwicz caught my attention:

So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude. Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Though I shouldn't say taking away. We are doing this to ourselves; we are discarding these riches as fast as we can.
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We are each also separate, each solitary, each alone in our own room, each miraculously our unique selves and mysteriously enclosed in that selfhood. To remember this, to hold oneself apart from society, is to begin to think one’s way beyond it. …No real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude.

It's a tough article to wade through, but these gems made it worthwhile. It has caused me to consider my life, and to ask myself: "When do you have time to be alone?"