The Creative Process Blog

‘Lonely’ is painful; ’solitary’ is joy.

Solitary is not the same as ‘isolated’; a solitary person is able to relate with others in an independent and creative way.

• Individualism tends toward separation from others;

• Totalism tends toward identity with others;

• Solitude tends toward engagement with others.

We are with others, even crowded together, and we are painfully alone. Other times, we are with others, deeply engaged, and we are joyfully alone.

Only confronting the Alone, do we have creative power; ‘thrown back’ on ourselves, we are asked to be more than we know how to be. We can be united with the creative effort of life; or, we can be lonely even for ourselves, isolated from our inner self!

When we live as an individual, we are subordinated rather than solitary, and have not become a person. Only as we know ourselves as radically alone, beyond any external idea to tell us who we are, do we become whole as a solitary person, which involves the anguish of freedom and responsibility. We do not imitate, adapt, adjust to what others expect us to be; we ‘meet’ them within an I-Thou relation as a unique person.

BERDYAEV QUOTE
When confronted with an object my Ego remains solitary; there is no need to emerge and go towards the Thou, but … in the presence of another Ego, which is also a Thou, it emerges from its solitude in an endeavour to achieve communion. The intuition of another Ego’s spiritual life is equivalent to communion with it.

“I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” Albert Einstein

‘Lonely’ is painful; ’solitary’ is joy.

Solitary is not the same as ‘isolated’; a solitary person is able to relate with others in an independent and creative way.

• Individualism tends toward separation from others;

• Totalism tends toward identity with others;

• Solitude tends toward engagement with others.

We are with others, even crowded together, and we are painfully alone. Other times, we are with others, deeply engaged, and we are joyfully alone.

Only confronting the Alone, do we have creative power; ‘thrown back’ on ourselves, we are asked to be more than we know how to be. We can be united with the creative effort of life; or, we can be lonely even for ourselves, isolated from our inner self!

When we live as an individual, we are subordinated rather than solitary, and have not become a person. Only as we know ourselves as radically alone, beyond any external idea to tell us who we are, do we become whole as a solitary person, which involves the anguish of freedom and responsibility. We do not imitate, adapt, adjust to what others expect us to be; we ‘meet’ them within an I-Thou relation as a unique person.

BERDYAEV QUOTE
When confronted with an object my Ego remains solitary; there is no need to emerge and go towards the Thou, but … in the presence of another Ego, which is also a Thou, it emerges from its solitude in an endeavour to achieve communion. The intuition of another Ego’s spiritual life is equivalent to communion with it.

“I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” Albert Einstein