The Blissful Pain of Solitude

Therefore, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubt and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke



I had to re post this Choose Happiness Now, as my life is somewhere between the ''solitude of almost painful bliss'' in the Rilke poem in the post above - some kind of sweet/sour irony! This one has really helped me do what I like, which includes a lot of solitary meditation - this brings me bliss - however my closest ''friends'' act as if I am abandoning them and living a ''boring'' life. One has even accused me of not having enough ''excitement'' in my life. The two posts together help me to have more compassion for them and me!