I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
— HENRY DAVID THOREAU
My explorations benefit from a long tradition of writing about solitude, although most of what has been available until now is not about deep wilderness solitude. Here I would like to glance briefly at a few other solitaries to see what the differences and commonalities between our solitudes might be.
IMAGINARY SOLITARIES
Two imaginary solitaries, Robinson Crusoe and FedEx systems engineer Chuck Noland — played by Tom Hanks in the film Cast Away — are interesting examples. My circumstance was fundamentally different from theirs in that I went into solitude intentionally, knowing I could leave again at the end of a year; they were thrust into isolation and came to believe they would be stuck there for the rest of their lives. My reaction to each of their stories is distinct.
When I translate the Christian terminology of Robinson Crusoe into my own hybrid Buddhist/Christian/naturalistic idiom, I can recognize much of my own inner experience there. I find it intriguing that author Daniel Defoe had such profound insight into the spiritual transformations that occur in wilderness solitude — even though he, himself, apparently did not spend extended periods away from other people.
During his time alone, Crusoe settles more and more deeply into relationship with God, and in this sometimes painful transformation, he frees himself from the limiting perspective of his social identity. This is most clearly evident in his perception (from a hiding place) of the cannibals who occasionally come to the island to slaughter and feast on other humans they have brought along for the purpose. At first, Crusoe is disgusted with their pagan savagery and can think only of killing them in turn. Then, as he examines his own value system from the perspective gained in solitude, he recognizes that they are not evil but simply doing what is natural in their culture. He, on the other hand, by judging them and wishing to kill them, is committing an evil act — by his own Christian standards. It is this transformation of consciousness — the surrender of the culturally indoctrinated self as sole arbiter of right and wrong — that Defoe portrays so well in various ways. (I understand I’ve just opened a cultural relativism can of worms, but I won’t dig into it here.)
In his book In Search of Robinson Crusoe, written in 2002, Tim Severin investigates some sources of information and inspiration that might have been available to Defoe when he wrote Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Severin also tracks down several living individuals who have experienced being shipwrecked. Strangely, Severin does not discuss the psychological or spiritual experiences of the marooned people he interviews. This strikes me as remarkable considering how important such aspects of experience were for Crusoe. What is going on? When Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, did the inner experiences of a castaway seem as strange and intriguing as the physical? Was there a more general interest in the spiritual/psychological aspects of life then than there is today?
I was disappointed with the film Cast Away. It seems to me that the filmmakers didn’t really know what they were talking about. They simply portrayed our current cultural fantasy of what being alone must be like. The story begins, and ends, with a man alienated from, and struggling against, the nonhuman world.
Noland spent four years alone on a tiny tropical island, and during that time it never seemed to occur to him that he was embedded in a living world. His consciousness was cloistered from the world around him by the mind-set that intimate engagement is possible only with another human being. Instead of finding his way through this cultural conditioning to develop a relationship with the trees, sea, and sky, with his own inner depths and with Spirit, he created a surrogate human from a volleyball. Sigh.
He never surrendered himself to living fully in the actual present, but remained emotionally centered on his memories and imaginings. The film doesn’t question this mind-set or hint at the possibility of meditation practice or nature mysticism, even given the recent flourishing of such practices in the West. Noland did lose the outward trappings of civilization, but he remained a man against nature — even though we in the audience were brought into relationship with nature via wonderful cinematography.
Although both these characters expanded their worldview, both also remained culturally bound to some extent: one by Christian dogma, the other by a belief in the all-encompassing value of human relationship. However, Crusoe’s inner transformation seems more profound. Perhaps the authors of each story focused on breaking free from what they perceived to be the most limiting aspect of their culture: Crusoe from a self-centered life, Noland from a frantic obsession with time.
ACTUAL SOLITARIES
In the writings of actual people who have taken themselves voluntarily into solitude, I find a mix of various motives: spiritual quest; love of nature; preference for living alone; the challenge of achieving a goal. Generally, seeking absolute wilderness solitude involves some degree of meeting a challenge. At times, a whiff of heroism slips into the writings of such individuals as they overcome almost impossible odds to finally achieve some goal — which may then permanently transform their lives. During my first long retreat into wilderness solitude when I was twenty-eight, I felt certain my life had been healed once and for all, but I now doubt that such peak experiences ever endure. They seem, instead, to be part of the ongoing flow of our living.
Solitaries vary in their focus of attention: inward and/or outward. The Christian Desert Fathers exemplified solitaries who seek solitude primarily to surrender themselves and come into relationship with God. For secular seekers, the “Something Greater” may be physical Nature rather than nonmaterial Spirit, but it is still perceived as sacred. Solitaries Chris Czajkowski and Richard Proenneke, on the other hand, scarcely mention their inner life. Czajkowski built a log cabin in a remote area of British Columbia’s Chilcotin wilderness and lived there alone for part of each of ten years. Proenneke built a log cabin and lived alone in the Alaskan wilderness for over thirty years. Yet the scope of their writing (in Czajkowski’s Nuk Tessli and Proenneke’s One Man’s Wilderness, with Sam Keith) embraces only the external world — for which both have a profound appreciation — and, occasionally, emotional tone. It is unclear whether they are troubled by introspection.
An extreme example of a solitary refusing to explore his inner world is found in Bold Man of the Sea: My Epic Journey by Jim Shekhdar and Edward Griffiths. Shekhdar considers loneliness and depression to be his enemies and speaks of girding himself in his battle against them. He sees all inward looking as dangerous and probably pointless. He claims he was too busy during his nine-month solo ocean voyage to indulge in such frivolous activity, but in fact did everything he could to keep his mind on the surface of things. He played as many as fifty games of electronic solitaire a day, constantly listened to whatever commercial or shortwave radio programs he could tune in, called his family at least three times a week via satellite telephone, sent numerous emails, and worked out a business plan on his laptop. All of these activities were in addition to the basic survival tasks of maintaining himself and his boat as he rowed and drifted across the Pacific.
Shekhdar claims to have been disappointed to not directly experience the existence of God, but how could he? He kept his mind so full of trivial activity there was little possibility to notice God’s presence. Yet still, from his description, changes took place during his trip — even if unbeknownst to him. His connection with nature deepened and softened somewhat. Necessarily, being in a small boat at sea, he surrendered his demand to be in control of everything. His perception of and relationship with a shark that followed him became less aggressive as he began to consider matters from her point of view.
Surprisingly, the solitaries I’ve read who did not go into solitude specifically in search of the sacred didn’t seem to prepare themselves psychologically or spiritually. Even those on an inward, as well as an outward, journey devoted little time and attention to inner preparation. Perhaps this is why some had such difficulty dealing with the psychological and emotional stress they had to face. For instance, Kevin Patterson sailed solo from the South Pacific to Vancouver, and Alvah Simon sailed his boat to the far north of Canada just west of Greenland, froze himself in intentionally, and wintered there alone; both spent considerable time in introspection, but neither writes about meditation practice or other spiritual training.
This is, I believe, a reflection of how we fragment our lives — or at least our writing: we are either physical adventurers or spiritual seekers, but seldom integrate these different aspects of ourselves. Before my first long retreat into wilderness solitude I, too, did not prepare for the inner turmoil I would face, and I nearly went insane as a consequence. Until we acknowledge our interior life and the value of psychological and spiritual training, we will remain unprepared to journey inward with equanimity. For me, Shekhdar’s account exemplifies how much we lose when we avoid looking within.
EXISTENTIAL TERROR
Existential terror, usually repressed or at least muted in the social milieu, can sometimes fill the solitary mind. Father Henri Nouwen (for quotes by Nouwen, see the Interlude “The Urge to Be Alone,” page 203) uses Christian vernacular to exquisitely describe the terror of nothingness and the dissolution of the self. In solitude, I see more clearly how we use social relationships as mirrors to maintain personal identity; through our interactions we hold each other’s persona in place. I have an idea of who I am — a conceptual identity — and in subtle ways invite and manipulate others to treat me as this persona needs to be treated to survive. In solitude, without this constant mirroring, the persona can begin to unravel. Believing we actually are our persona, we may feel like we are literally going to physically die. Hence the terror. This has been my experience, and I believe the process is common to many.
I see three possible responses to this unraveling: embrace it, avoid it, or go mad. If we have some understanding of what is happening and the desire to seek a deeper center of ourselves than the shifting sand of our persona, we might make the effort to stay with the terror, loneliness, doubt, and despair until our ego-self dissolves into Something Greater. Then there can be self-acceptance and peace. It is as if a carpet is being pulled from beneath our feet and we feel we are falling into the void. If we remain quiet and alert, we discover there is a solid floor (or rather, the living Earth) beneath the carpet. Even though there is no static solidity, doubt and insecurity disappear and we feel cradled and cared for. But this is possible only once we surrender the idea of who we think we are. Individuals on a spiritual quest may go into solitude exactly because it is an intense catalyst for such transformation.
Avoidance has many forms. Commonly, when terror and loneliness wash over us and we fear being swept away, we avert our attention by keeping ourselves busy with activity or some other escape, such as reading or television, food or narcotics, or other people. It’s tempting to say that anyone who does not struggle with existential terror is in some sort of avoidance mode, but this may not be fair. I can know only that this is so for me. Solitaries Admiral Richard Byrd, Simon, and Patterson write about their psychological struggles, but Thoreau, Czajkowski, and Proenneke barely mention inner turmoil.
It’s clear, though, that some solitaries, either because they don’t experience the loneliness and terror or because they accept and transform it, feel at ease with themselves and express little desire to leave their life in solitude. Others come up to that dark place and do not allow themselves to embrace it — naked and alone. They escape their solitude one way or another. After a long eventful trip, Patterson called to be towed to shore rather than stay with his longing for other people for even one more day, and so sail in on his own. Simon and Byrd leaned heavily on their radios for companionship, and claim it was the endless winter dark of their low-latitude locations that was impossible to bear alone. Still, many spiritual seekers have walled themselves up alone in caves for years. Byrd was, apparently, seriously delusional and possibly close to death from carbon monoxide poisoning; it’s intriguing to wonder how much of his suffering was due to poisoning and how much to natural psychological disorientation. Shekhdar, determined to reach his goal of being the first to row solo across the Pacific, hung on and waited for the wind and current to carry him to his destination — some three months after he had expected to arrive. Indeed, setting the record was apparently the only thing that made the journey worthwhile for him. He did not consider spending time alone to be a valuable experience in and of itself.
I’ve found commonalities among the experiences of solitaries as well. Patience seems to develop with the growing realization that we are not in charge of the world. Civilization is designed to buffer and to help us avoid facing the uncertainty of life. In wilderness solitude the illusion of control quickly drops away as we are confronted with our need to adapt to the world around us.
Solitaries have a tendency to anthropomorphize and describe the nonhuman world in metaphorical language. This is especially evident in some of Thoreau’s writing. When I attribute thoughts, emotions, or intentionality to the world around me, I do it in a self-reflexive way, often with tongue in cheek. I’m not claiming I actually know what animals, or the wind, think or feel, but in solitude the visceral experience can be intense and magical — at times terrifying. And, if I can’t logically claim to know the thoughts and feelings of animals, neither can I dismiss such intuitive identification. Perhaps in solitude I become more sensitive to connections usually invisible to our city-dulled senses. I simply don’t know. In any case, personalizing animals and elemental forces seems to happen naturally in solitude.
A third, and for me vital, commonality all solitaries seem to share is the experience of feeling vibrantly, often ecstatically, alive in a living world. In Walden, Thoreau flatly states, “There is nothing inorganic.”1 Years later, in Alone, Byrd wrote, “There came over me, too powerfully to be denied, that exalted sense of identification — of oneness — with the outer world which is partly mystical but also certainty....There were moments when I felt more alive [emphasis his] than at any other time in my life.”2 It is unclear from Shekhdar’s writing whether he consciously experienced this sense of vibrant aliveness, but then he seemed intent on avoiding being psychologically alone with himself. Even so, I detect in his descriptions of sea, sky, and fish a deepening sense of feeling at home with the nonhuman world.
What beckons to my imagination are the solitaries we know nothing about; those who do not write or speak of their experience; those who fully shift their center of being from human culture to Something Else. What of Lao Tzu after he wrote the Tao Te Ching for the gatekeeper and then disappeared over the pass and into the mountains beyond? What of the silent ones who never wrote anything?