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Herb Rothschild Jr.: A quieter fellowship By Herb Rothschild Jr. Apr 03, 2020 05:24 PM A A The English language has at least three different words that denote the state of being alone — isolation, loneliness and solitude. I find the differences in their connotations instructive, especially now. Isolation connotes a removal from the company of others that one wouldn’t ordinarily choose. There are isolation cells for violent prisoners and isolation wards for contagious patients. The word is closely related to quarantine. Diseased people are isolated; people exposed to disease are quarantined to see if they contract it. People who suffer from clinical depression frequently self-isolate because at those times they simply cannot maintain emotional connection with their families or friends. Which brings us to loneliness. Loneliness doesn’t depend on whether there are other people in one’s life, but on one’s connection to them. Unless, as a minimum, the people we are with make us feel they’re glad we’re part of their lives, their presence can’t overcome loneliness. One never feels more lonely than living with a person after love between you has died. Solitude is both a risk and an opportunity. The risk is to feel lonely. The opportunity is to deepen connection with realities to which many of us rarely pay notice. When we are alone and quiet, we become receptive to what, both without and within, our ordinary transactions with the world obscure. For mystics and most artists, solitude is an essential precondition for inspiration. Hermann Hesse, both artist and mystic, wrote, “We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for in our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.” Since I’m neither a mystic nor an artist, however, I’ll focus on openness to what Gerard Manley Hopkins called “the dearest freshness” that lives “deep down things.” So, to what do we attend in this time of a solitude enforced by self-isolation? If a partner lives with us, we can no longer live only in those portions of each other’s lives and in those ways routine has allotted. We become alert to how much we are gifts to each other. Or not. As the coronavirus outbreak wanes in China, the applications for divorce have reached record levels. And then there are the angiosperms, the flowering plants that developed eons after the ferns. Knowing how ugly human life can be, the ancient Hebrews had the creator make our parents the gardeners of Eden. We resurrect it in the cherry blossoms and daffodils. Then there’s ourselves. I’m not as self-assured as the American poet May Sarton, who declared, “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.” But if we can get beyond our egos, we find ourselves capacious. Carl Jung titled his autobiographical writings “Memories, Dreams and Reflections,” and averred that the most important aspects of his life hadn’t been its external events. For me, an extrovert by temperament, the interplay of event and reflection is more familiar. I reflect on what I remember, and the feelings my reflections generate are deeper than the thoughts. Whatever is most congenial — Gratitude, Curiosity, Old Love — let’s cultivate its companionship. But let’s cast out Remorse. It’s intruded too often on our self-delight. Herb Rothschild’s column appears in the Ashland Tidings every Saturday. RothschildHerb.jpg