Home alone with apophenia
My wife has taken our kids to visit the grandparents this week, while I, having to work, am left here on my own. It’s the first time I’ve spent so much time alone in the house in a very long time, certainly since our eldest was born nearly four years ago. And, although it’s gloriously quiet and my consciousness is able to settle over the whole house, I have been noticing that my daily information stream seems to want to remind me of my situation…
First there was Leo Babauta’s article over at Design Taxi entitled “The Habits of Creative People” in which he lists some common creative habits and then curates quotes from a number of contemporary and historical figures in which they give their thoughts on those habits. Number one habit? Solitude.
“You need not leave your room,” says Kafka, “Remain sitting at your table and listen… the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” Unlikely, say I.
“Without great solitude no serious work is possible.” entones Picasso, so pompously I can hear his voice in my mind.
My favourite though is from Mozart, who said, so it is reported, “When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer–say, traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal or during the night when I cannot sleep–it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.”
Yes. Completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer. That sounds right.
And then just a short time after reading this, Andrea Dorfman’s beautiful eulogy to aloneness rolls past my eyeballs…
Coincidence? Yes. Apophenia :-)
Apophenia: the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
