Me and myself alone: The challenge of solitude

On Wednesday, as a lecturer for BC Talks, I will talk about the benefits of practicing solitude and its implications on the people around us. For the time being, I’ll give you my two cents on how immensely difficult it is to enter into true solitude.

I’m a few weeks into my semester abroad in Ecuador and my host parents give me only two rules:

1) Don’t go on an excursion by yourself.

2) Don’t climb Pichincha after 10 AM.

I’ll set one thing straight— I didn’t exactly come to Ecuador to keep within the rules.

So it’s 11 AM as I hop out of the taxi at the base of the volcano. I’ve heard the climb is nothing crazy— only a three-hour trek to the summit. I approach the beginning of the dirt path and put my headphones in, feeling confident I’ll be up and back down in time for a late-afternoon lunch.

The three-mile altitude introduces itself to me as aggressively as a CSOM kid at the career fair. The view of Quito from above is equally as breathtaking. All things considered, I still feel good enough to keep at a steady pace.

By noontime I have made significant progress, though I now begin to see the looming clouds descend on the path ahead.

Two hours in, the path becomes much narrower, the edges much steeper. The wind picks up, sweeping more and more fog onto the path. Within minutes, the fog becomes impenetrable and I find myself standing in the midst of white clouds. The clouds are so dense I can’t even see my hand six inches in front of my face.

I once again understand why you should always listen to your (host) parents.

I open and close my eyes, shifting my vision from pure black to pure white. Shrouded in the midst of these clouds, I find myself in my own world. Never have I so deeply confronted myself.

Never has it been so difficult to simply stand where I am.

Me and myself alone.

It lasts only ten minutes. The wind picks up, the clouds roll through, and the surroundings become as clear as ever. I complete the day’s mission within the next hour, reaching the summit by 2 PM.

However, it is the ten minutes in midst of those clouds that have most deeply stuck with me. Looking back, I believe it is perhaps one of the deepest moments of solitude I have ever experienced.

We experience a distinct trepidation as we approach this solitary time and place. Our outer distractions attempt to shield ourselves from this fear. When we are alone without people to talk with, books to read, TV to watch, or phone calls to make, an inner chaos opens up.

We are immensely fearful of these moments— when we cannot immediately shut out our doubts, anxieties, conflicts, and regrets. We prefer to run, to be anywhere else than where we are now.

The question is, can you stay here and stand tall in your loneliness?

These feelings will try to overwhelm you, but you are called to accept them while remaining on your feet. You must dare to stay with this pain and allow it to be there. When you enter into this, you must go through the pain and remain standing. Only then will you experience what I mean by solitude. It is here where you discover the truth of who you are, a place to which you can always return.

It is here that are you no longer alone, but in the presence of another. Call it God. Call it your true self.

For now, I’ll just say it’s me and myself alone.