CRITICA

Solitude, founded on silence to settle the soul, reveals its intelligence as we listen, without thought. The silence of solitude is not an absence of sound, but the pulse of life, confiding off the record, without explanation or knowledge, from infinite orbit and depth, what matters. This is wonder, the activity at our core. Unhurried, we listen through the silence to that which, unknowable, molds symbols from wonder, for no reason or purpose, whatever we do, work, sleep, play, cook, sing, put out garbage.

Solitude is not loneliness, estrangement, alienation, withdrawal, resignation or isolation. It is privacy, with everyone present. No-one who matters is left out. No-one who doesn’t matter is left out. A proviso for wonder, solitude seems to lie behind all that is creative, itself the descendant of wonder in the realm of the unthinkable. Each of us is new and unique, unlike any before or after. To be creative in solitude is the experience of a close encounter with wonder through our unique, authentic self. What makes each creative moment original and unrepeatable is its intrinsically personal origin and unthought, transcendent span. Timeless, it leaves its mark on our life and the lives of others.

Wonder, like all authentic experiences, occurs when we are nothing other than who we are. When we classify, analyze, talk or write about experiences, we are uprooted. The truth of what you are reading now is worthless unless you admit, without reason, the experience of wonder in your Self, the intent of which is to withhold no experience or person, so as to remain whole.^[1] We cannot fully know ourselves, or any other person, as genuine, core selves need to remain unknown, prior to knowledge and be lived as experiences about which we wonder.

As we develop, patterns are laid down contiguous to the authentic self which has no concern for communication, let alone engagement. Experience of others involves departure from our authentic self which could be depleting, so a way of growing is needed which, under favorable circumstances, comes naturally, if not always easily. A true relationship must entail acceptance of the authentic self in ourselves and in others in order to deepen. This is not always possible. The parent (or person) who says to a child (or person) ‘I love you but not how you are behaving’ conflates self with behavior whilst believing they are not doing this, and in so doing rejects the entire child/person. We are not made up of elements that can be suppressed or enhanced, rejected or accepted. We are inherently, originally whole and strive to protect this wholeness and integrity whatever else happens to us. Exposing and assaulting the authentic self is a mutilation, including for the perpetrator. Even in those who plan suicide, the idea of continuing to exist following suicide is a sane, albeit desperate, attempt to not forsake wholeness. We possess an in-dwelling, abiding sense of our own self and, from this, the self in others, even if we are unable to make use of it. No matter how disaffected or estranged we feel, this integrity is inviolate.

When accepted and respected, our authentic self sanctions constructive engagement with others including in adversity and conflict. Appreciation of the authentic self without thought or reason may be the most natural form of love there is and an essential underpinning for the courage required to face conflict. Resolution of conflict requires negotiation of extreme feelings, competing urges and irrational as well as rational wishes and cannot succeed without regard for the authentic self in oneself and the other. The sober tenderness of this intelligence is the strategic authority for repair.

Wonder, an experience that is unpredictable and disquieting, enlivens like no other. We wonder ‘about something’ only for it to disperse, scatter to the four winds leaving in its wake wonder about what we have been wondering about. Is wonder the primary, private force through which we shape ourselves? When accorded the solitude and spontaneity it thrives upon, wonder treats us as longed-for beneficiaries and, when passed over, it waits patiently as it sees more clearly than we do that we are the something and the something else being wondered about, without thinking or knowing. It is an embrace without which we are unable to live life. 

Solitude and wonder are drawn to each other like friends comparing notes, musing, improvising, doing nothing. And we? We let them get on with it. The partnership arose prior to us, in the eyes of a mother filled with a vision of the wholeness of her new-born baby, an aliveness maintained by respectful wonder that engenders the person who is her child.

The isolated person does not have this partnership, or the experience of respect for the authentic self. Confusion as to what constitutes a relationship is inevitable. Esteem by others for the authentic self may be misconstrued as distance or neglect, connection as intrusion and invasion, safety as withdrawal, kinship as psychosis. Notwithstanding this suffering, the isolated individual continues to be lived by an elemental sentience of the authentic self, which is the birthplace of hope. Hope relies upon isolation of the core, authentic self which releases the personality in search of the lifeblood of dependence on the other. Isolation of the authentic self, essential for health, lies in marked contrast to radical isolation in which ‘psychic pseudopodia’ from the infant seeking out nutrients from the environment were met by nothing or toxins, provoking retreat by the core self into ever deeper hiding. Solitude, partnership and wonder are beyond reach. If the core self is forced to give itself up, the mind collapses, along with the personality. Those who survive such compromises of the will to live are at constant risk of splintering, there being ‘no-one inside’ to assist the personality. They live in fear and despair, a despair that can feel like a contagion.

A temptation for the personality with a healthily isolated authentic self is to ignore the unavailability of the radically isolated individual who has ‘no-one inside’. There is nothing much there, is there? Or what is there is ‘bad’. The truth is, what is there is not what there is. What there is, unavailable to both parties, is an authentic self not insulated but exposed and violated.

The authority of tenderness, devoid of thinking and reason, is needed by the body and mind of the isolated individual so that respect for the authentic self may be established. Neither party will necessarily enjoy what may be painful labor, but nothing the radically isolated person does is capable of withstanding the authority of tenderness, as there is nothing to withstand. Its lifeblood is the safety the authentic self depends upon, even if the personality imagines it can’t bear it. The authority of tenderness possesses no power or influence beyond fair-minded recognition. At its most difficult, the individual’s response might be anguish that surprises or strickens the starved personality. This is not fundamental opposition, more a shock to the system like the person dying of thirst who coughs and vomits from taking in too much water. At its best, there may be wordless affiliation.

Why do all this, is the question in the minds of both parties. Because it makes it possible to create, by respecting the authentic self, an experience of shared wonder, a combination of solitude and intimate partnership which is the unique vision of where we began.

Loneliness is a good thing. When we are radically isolated, we cannot experience loneliness or the need for another. Loneliness is an unattainable luxury. When the authentic self is imperiled and lacks protection, others are what we believe we need least. The personality’s ‘pseudopodia’ are withdrawn from contact, including from internal others. Until the authority of tenderness prevails and the True Self is granted the acceptance and solitude it needs, the mind and personality are caged and subjugated. It takes time for the authority of tenderness to inscribe itself. The individual may have been incapacitated by radical isolation and the authentic self may appear to have disintegrated, but respect for its dignity and thoughtful interest in the suffering of the individual are the conditions for a resumption of living, not existing, and from these experiences, loneliness may become achievable.

*Opening essay from the book“The Authority of Tenderness – Dignity and the True Self in Psychoanalysis” by Paul Williams (Routledge: in press).