Morality concepts and philosophical foundations

¶ … Rewards of Solitude and Socialization

America has always idolized outsiders in its literary imagination. Consider the figures of the heroic outsider, the rugged individualist, and even the stalwart homesteader upon the frontier. All of these individuals are positive constructions of the solitary outsider in American society. These lonely ideals span the range from Emerson's essays to Thoreau's life at Walden Pond, to Hemingway's fiction. But in reality, and in ordinary conversation, solitude and solitary people are often suspected by the neighborhoods in which they might choose live. The other side of the outsider in American life is the television camera pointed at the glazed features of the neighbors of a serial killer, as the police dig up the individual's backyard. Invariably, they respond. 'He was quiet. He always kept to himself.'

The poet and essayist May Sarton offers neither extreme in her positive view of living outside the societal fold, alone. Being in solitude does not automatically make one a hero or a crazy hermit. Instead, solitude can be a potentially beneficial state for those who chose it, or for those who must chose it. Her essay is entitled "The Rewards of Living a Solitary Life." She begins her essay with a story of a man, suddenly left alone. He is frightened by the prospect of solitude. This man, was always, as described by Sarton, a gregarious and charming individual. But he measured his worth against others and thus he was shocked and saddened at the prospect of being alone, even for a short period of time.

Instead, Sarton relishes daily, she says, her solitude and the differences of taste, temperament, mood that come within herself, when she does not have to engaged in contact with other people and their woes and triumphs. The difference of attitude towards solitude expressed by the suddenly lonely man and her own mind prompts Sarton's reflections over the course of the essay. This man's reaction surprises Sarton, partly because she is accustomed as a writer, to spending much of her day alone. Her solitude, she believes, allows her to be herself. Only when one is alone, does the individual's self truly emerge.

This assertion, although stark, causes the reader to think of how many times he or she may have changed his or her true opinion in words, but not in thought. One pretends to change one's mind, based upon one's loved ones and one's friend's advice and world perspective, are shifted and amended. The common wisdom may be simply that -- common, but not necessarily right, and accepted because everyone thinks that way. It may not even be that all human beings believe the cliches they circulate, regarding race, religion, gender or even such ethical assertions that 'it's an ill wind that blows nobody good.' Living alone, and not being forced to amend one's opinions and life to others, allows the uniqueness of every human soul to emerge without such amendment. In solitude, soaked in the juices of one's own character, fermenting alone, every human character emerges as something of a genius, according to Sarton. It is only when the individual is alone that he or she, says Sarton, can afford to be wholly whatever he or she is, and feel whatever he or she feels absolutely. One need not bow one's head in sympathy for someone one does not love, and one can weep because it is raining, no matter how absurd the behavior might seem to an outsider's eye.

It is this ability to live in solitude constructively, Sarton states, that has given her the ability to emerge as a unique voice as a writer. For not only, first and foremost does solitude allow one's eccentricities to emerge in all of their glory, but also, secondly solitude allows one to have the time to express a true identity in a life lived on one's own clock, rather than governed by the schedules and the whims and will of others. One can express one's self chopping wood, writing poetry, or simply being at peace in a state of meditation, rather than worrying about ferrying students to lessons and soccer games, or of getting one's husband's dinner on the table at five o'clock. The pressures created by society seem insignificant in solitude, of exactitude of time, or of being the best goalie of the under six set at the local pewee soccer matches.

This is perhaps especially true for women. Women are more often than not, asked to subsume their desires to those of others. Yet, one might ask -- why not try to change society and the extra demands it makes of women's time, and the devaluation of female time at the expense of others? If women have less time to be in solitude and to be creative because they must work for money, then work for their children at home, and then work on their relationships with their husband, rather than seeing aloneness, should not women in particular not strive in society to make society more amenable to socialization and female creativity?