Chapter 51 lonely - 3

We are the material of an experiment, but I am very interested in this experiment.Under such circumstances, can we not leave our society of right and wrong for a moment--let only our own thoughts inspire us?Confucius said it well, "Virtue is not alone, there must be neighbors." With thought, we can be ecstatic in our waking state.So long as our minds make a conscious effort, we can rise high above any action and its consequences; all things, good and bad, pass us by like a torrent.We are not all entangled in nature.I can be a piece of driftwood in the rapids, or I can be Indra looking at the world from the sky.The theater may well have moved me; on the other hand, events more vital to my life may not have moved me.I only know that I exist as a person; it can be said that I am a stage that reflects my thoughts and feelings. I have a somewhat dual personality, so I can see myself from a distance as if I see others.No matter how intensely I have experienced it, I have always been aware of a part of me criticizing me from the sidelines, as if it were not part of me, just a bystander, not sharing my experience but noticing it: just as he does not Not you, and he can't be me.When the play of life is over, most likely a tragedy, the audience goes away by itself.With regard to this second personality, it is of course a fiction, a creation of the imagination.But sometimes this double personality can easily make it difficult for others to be neighbors and friends with us.

Most of the time, I find loneliness to be healthy.Having company, even the best company, soon tires and makes a mess.I love solitude.I have never met a better companion than loneliness.Going to the toilet in a foreign country is probably more lonely among people than being alone indoors.A man who is thinking and working is always alone, let him be where he loves, for loneliness cannot be counted by the miles a man is away from his companions.The really studious student is as lonely as a dervish in the desert in the most crowded hive of Cambridge College.A farmer can be alone all day in the field, in the forest, plowing or felling, and not feel lonely, because he has a job; but at night, when he comes home, he cannot meditate alone in the room, but must Going to the place where "people who can see him" is used for recreation, he thought, to compensate for his loneliness for a day; so he wondered why the students could sit indoors all day and all night without feeling bored. "Melancholy"; but he did not understand that although the student was indoors, he worked on his field, felled in his forest, as the farmer was in the field or in the forest, and that afterward the student had to seek amusement and socialize, though that The form could be more condensed.

Socializing is often cheap.The time spent together is too short to allow each other to gain anything new and valuable.We meet for three meals a day, and we get a new taste of our stale cheese.We all have to agree to a few rules, That is the so-called etiquette and politeness, which makes this frequent gathering peaceful and avoids public quarrels and even red faces.We meet at the post-office, at the society, by the fireside every night; we live so crowded together, we interfere with each other, we entangle each other, that I think we have little respect for each other.Of course, all important and cordial gatherings, less frequent would suffice.Think of the woman worker in the factory--never can live alone, not even dream of being alone.It would be much better if only one person lived a mile, like here.The value of a person is not on his skin, so we don't need to touch the skin.