The Importance of Seclusion

I certainly know the importance of seclusion.  After all, I experience it almost every day.  Sad, I know, but true!  Who cares, though.  It's made me much more resilient to forced seclusion, so I like to think of it as training for when something happens that could potentially make me go mad.  Though I normally have seclusion with a device that I can use to connect to the outside world...

Okay, I'll admit it: My seclusion isn't very healthy.  I sit down for extended periods and just stare at a computer screen.  Then, if I want to go out, I stare at an LCD attached to my camera, rather than looking at the actual world.  Is that bad, looking through technology?  That's a good book idea, actually...

Is seclusion important, though?  Yes, I believe it is.  You can't put yourself out there for days on end, dealing with person after person, making yourself depend on others for who you are, what you can do.  I'm being melodramatic, it's definitely not that extreme, but my point remains valid!  If you're surrounded by people constantly with no time to evaluate yourself, how do you know you're your own person?  You could be completely mimicking every other person you're with and not realize it.

Let's face it, we're a product of our experiences.  Individualism is a lie.  All this "Be who you want to be!" bull crap is completely false.  There's six billion of us, not to mention the billions that came before us.  You're not the first person to think up an idea, you're not the first person to make a certain sound.  Seriously, think of the most inane, idiotic thing you can right now.  The odds that someone, somewhere, at some point in time thought that same exact thing could be pretty high.  I'm sorry if I'm pessimistic, but it's true!  You're not unique, you're not special!  You're just another person.  This seclusion allows you to deal with that.

I've dealt with this realization for a while now, but this realization allows me to continue on and discover new ideas and new ways to get past this minor set back.  And, like I've said, I'm sure I'm not the first person to think this.  Odds are, someone else reading this right now could have realized this long ago, too.  I'm not unique in discovering this, but my seclusion allowed me to figure it out and deal with it.

I think I digress too much...