It’s good to be alone. Alone is good, alone is clear. I get lost in oceans of others. They jostle me, throw my thoughts into a jigsaw puzzle. The boat rocks, and the others tell me why. They tell me where I should be going, what lies beyond the setting sun of burning red.
Reflection is more than just seeing what is, there’s always a lens. And in tiny throngs or teeming masses thought always refracts. Thoughts of others, thoughts of oneself, and then I’m alone again and the distortions are real and the real is distortion. What do I believe again? What are my values? Where on earth am I?
Disorientation is the common cause of the group, the human condition. So many babbling voices and so many things I’m supposed to care about, things that make me better or worse on some scale I cannot see or feel or hear but it’s beneath me. And in the end, I am standing there alone, being judged alone, judging alone.
The pangs of doubt prickle and sting and shift with each passing motion, with each action or word that should or shouldn’t have been said. I suppose it’s a matter of character, that’s what I like to tell myself. Character means to withstand the pangs, to ride the waves, to own the responsibility for my solitary judgments.
After all, I am living alone. I will live alone. I will die alone. This much is certain. We live our lives in our brains, in the patterns we make and that were made for us. That cluster of brown and green is called a tree, son. If I can accept that then why not the millions of little propositions that are made to me every day – this is good, this is bad, value this, pursue this, on and on and on.
I calm myself. I rant and I vent on a laptop screen and look within myself. There is something inside that knows the way, the compass tells me in a quiet voice that I’m being a good human being or a terrible one. And I listen, for it isn’t drowned out by the millions of shouted commands, for I am alone.
To be good is a choice. To do good is a choice. To make these choices, it is necessary to know good. And I don’t always know. Hell, I mostly have no clue whatsoever. But I am driven by the desire to try.
It’s good to be alone, because alone is not adrift if I’m my own anchor. Soon, it’ll be time to set sail once again, to leave this safe harbour behind and go forth once again into the oceans of others. But it’s nice to just, sit here. For a little while. And I’ll go when that quiet voice tells me where to go.
The Galley with No Name 