Solo notes

Solo. Solitude. Loneliness. Alone. Dreaded words in today's world, probably more dreaded than the words cheating, villainy, slander. It is not easy to admit, to oneself, or others that one does not have company. Somehow, there is a great deal of acceptance associated with company, however inferior, and none associated with the company of oneself. A loner is a word with strong negative connotations, as is lone wolf. One who seeks company, however, is not called a sheep, but a social butterfly!
Most people who are questioned about this phenomenon would retort with the cliche"Man is a social animal". I am not sure who came up with this statement, and whether it has evolutionary/biological/anthropological arguments. I wonder what these arguments are. It seems like there are many "social animals". Sheep, for one. Cows, elephants, penguins, monkeys to name few more. All these animals stick together in packs, mostly for ensuring food and security for themeselves. So how is it a human prerogative to be a social animal?
In fact, outside of the animal functions of eating, mating, bringing up young etc., the achievements of the most intelligent species have rarely been communal. A thinking mind always strives solitude, as does one that creates. What philosophies would have been born if Thoreau, Nietschze, Sankara, Confucius and Ramanuja had not meditated on life alone? What excellence could have dazzled forth from mathematicians and musicians, writers and poets, physicists and painters, if they had spent their lives in parties! A scientist, an artist, a thinker, a gymnast or even a cook cannot reach his peak in a community setting. For every significant achievement of the human mind, there are hours of solitude required. Then, why is solitude not our fundamental nature? Is it because our fundamental nature still closely resembles animals who live in herds? Is solitude only for those who exercise their minds, and is it therefore, a higher form of evolution that has not yet become the norm?
Clearly, pursuits of the mind are not the reason why we have social hangovers.

People usually like to have new sensual experiences in groups, or at least pairs. The magnificence of natural sights, the mellifluousness of a musical concert, the savor of a gourmet dish, the fragrance of blooms, or the touch of a spring breeze...can any of these intensely personal, sensual experiences be enjoyed any better because of the presence of another? Narrating the experience to one-another could possibly give some joy. But how can words, however articulate, convey any more joy than the experience itself? Why does another person's experience provide reassurance and legitimacy of our own? If it concerns matters of the heart, then that is a different genre that i will not venture into! Most of the times, though, the society we seek (and find) is shallow, unfulfilling, trifling and uninspired. They are around us, for their mere presence, as if the value of a human being is in his skin! The protocols that we have developed, enable us to be "courteous" and "well-behaved", euphemisms for unnatural and affected. We ask questions that we dont want to, hear answers that we dont listen to, make passive-aggressive statements that show how we are somehow playing the game better and then disperse back into our own zones. Heartless attempts, full of propriety. Its almost as if we wouldnt be who we were, if not for the endorsement that groups of far less qualified indviduals gave us! Confucius aptly put it when he said "Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have neighbors."
I imagine a society where lives are not intertwined. Where people are not perenially under a parasol of approval or disapproval from their "designated critics". Where social acceptance does not rely on popularity indices. Where the number of invitees for one's graduation party does not determine one's image. Where gossip is not cast into million dollar industries. Where another person's foibles are less attractive than one's own. Where the culture is to savor the silence of solitude and to use it well. Where the emphasis, on a man's 80th birthday, would be the number of achievements his mind made, as opposed to the number of guests in his birthday party.

No one other than Thoreau could have come up with this ode to solitude: I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.