That's a hard question for me, these days. In the past I always enjoyed my own company, my books and my creative projects.
These days, I don't have anything in my mind, and no motivation to do anything. I'm a complete cipher.
Pragmatically, I think it would be best for me to be around others just as escape from my self, but haven't much to offer, I would just function as a parasite upon others' vitality and interests. No one can afford to host people whose personality drains them these days, with life more uncertain for everyone,.
I've lost my balance.
In this poem Wallace Stevens suggests that there's some third mental state in which one is neither lonely nor seeking company, but rather just observing and contemplating, without a need for control.
"He disposes the world in categories, thus:
The peopled andIn both, he is
Alone. But in the peopled world, there is,
Besides the people, his knowledge of them. In
The unpeopled, there is knowledge of himself.
Which is more desperate in the moments when
The will demands that what he thinks been true?
Is it himself in them that he knows or they
In him? If it is himself in them, they have
No secret from him. If it is they in him,
He has no secret from them. This knowledge
Of them and of himself destroys both worlds, except when he escapes from it. To be
Alone is not to know them or himself.
this creates a third world without knowledge,
In which no one peers, in which the will makes no
Demands. It accepts whatever is as true,
Including pain, which otherwise is false.
In the third world, then, there is no pain."
Wish I knew how to reach such a place. I don't though, and I know it's timed for me to go. I have the means, thanks to this web site. But so far I can't summon the will to act.
