“Some people become experts at avoidance and cultivate the capacity to be alone. The charm of solitude, celebrated by British psychiatrist Anthony Storr,13 is that it provides space for repose and reflection, time for looking within the self, time for creative endeavor. Solitude offers respite from the noisy claims of everyday social living. I’ll discuss later how solitude can give us a chance to listen to our own thoughts. But some of the penchant for being alone is defensive—an accommodation to being hurt by not being heard. The defenses that form the solitary person’s character support a grand illusion: the illusion of self-reliance. If we could only examine the contemplation of one’s own feelings that passes for introspection, we’d discover that the silence of the solitary is often filled with imagined conversations.14” Excerpt From: Michael P. Nichols. “The Lost Art of Listening, Second Edition.” The Guilford Press, 2009. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 02:16:50 +0000
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