Alone Is Sometimes The Only Way To Be.

The only piece of “home” I have brought with me – aside from a few photos of loved ones, and some Circus Animal cookies (thank you, Kevin!) – is a photocopy of a smallish article printed in a skate magazine a few years back. A good friend who shares a similar outlook on life gave it to me, and I like to read it often. It’s part of a regular column by Scott Bourne, called “Black Box.” I feel its relevance, especially now, and I think it may be relevant to someone else out there.
The article reads:

It is when I am alone that I am peace with the world. There is no one to be judged and no one to judge me. Things and people are virtually non-existent without judgements. There is no code or file to define their place among men…and men are so eager to place themselves, to make their mark. Many men fight hard for fame, but few for greatness. To be alone with one’s self is truly great, just walking, thinking--being. When I am alone I can hear myself. The man I am, just is. He doesn’t feel some strange outside desire to express his feelings or beliefs to his peers, or to support his ideals in front of others. He just builds and destroys himself with thought. He does not lust for what he cannot see or cannot love--it is not on his mind. There is no room for things with no use, and the superficial part of myself that may wish to prove himself to the world falls sounds asleep under the spell of self-security. I am full of life, and at that moment not even death is a concern. If I were to die I would die with a man who is at peace, a man who knows himself as well as the beauty and splendor of the world, a man who sees life, even in its worst moments, as a gift. That man is myself.
There is no lonelier man than he who has lost himself, so much that he requires the company of others to assure him of his greatness and is forced to die with nothing and no one. That is what it means to know Hell—to be soulless—to die with a million men chanting your name and nobody holding your hand.
Here, when I am alone, it is my soul that keeps me company, it is the nature of man that becomes me. I know who I am, and I am unconcerned with proving that man to men who do not know themselves.

-October 24, 2002
Talouse, France

I believe we can recognize true love when another’s fears, their hopes, and their struggles are realized within us. We take those things upon ourselves, their realities slowly becoming our own. I understand how important it is to endure personal struggles because it is through those experiences that we make something uniquely our own out of life…however, I still find myself desiring to take his pains away, to want to solve his problems for him. Whatever he needs, I want to give him. I just want him to be happy, to feel complete again. I feel as though a part of me, knowing what I know, will feel a bit off until that happens.

I am out here because of some unconscious need for greater exploration, and it is my soul and my thoughts of him that keep me company. He, too, is on an exploration – to find himself – and I hope that in some small way I can do for him what he does me.
My greatest wish is that his efforts be met with solace…