Nature

Solitude

by Jordan Morrisey, '22

Over the weekend, I was asked to complete a simple task: sit in nature (or solitude) for at least twenty minutes while solely reflecting on and observing our thoughts and our surroundings. So, on January 31st, 2021, around 5:40 PM, I spent twenty minutes in isolation, with my thoughts. Due to snowfall, I remained indoors for this assignment. Instead, I shut my bedroom door, pulled a chair up to a window, and turned off the lights in my room. I watched the snow flit and blow in the wind. Here is a recollection of thoughts as I followed, albeit for a short period of time, the ways of the Transcendentalists.

I don’t know whether snow imitates life or vice versa. What I have figured out, however, is that the snow and the current disruptions of the world should have mirrored each other. When it snows and the roads become slippery and cars get stuck in snow banks and stores close temporarily, everyone is expected to slow down. We operate our motor vehicles at declining speeds to avoid wreckage and to protect ourselves from crashing and burning. We know that driving in the snow is not the same as driving with a shining sun on a clear day in the summertime. Thus, we change our way of life to slow down and pace ourselves to avoid accidents and damage.

So why didn’t we do the same when our whole lives changed? When instead of going to school everyday, students would go in every other day, if at all? When although it was “easier”, online school drained us of our social and physical wellbeing? When the fun things about school, like sports games and dances and spirit weeks were cancelled or modified? Why is it that when the stress of not knowing what tomorrow will look like is amplified, we are expected to be bogged down with assignment after assignment? I understand that learning must take place some time, but to act like the world is the same when it is clearly not is what will lead to the crashing and burning of our adolescents. I don’t ask for pity or a psychological study to be done, but I wonder: why do we treat and act like this year is the same when it is in fact not? Why isn’t it going through to the system that we are not in a usual state of living, or mental health, and we should work with what we have to improve our quality of life?

My father always told me to forge ahead in times like this. When you are able to persevere, do so. I am thankful to have this reassurance on a daily basis, but even with reassurance, it is difficult to go day-to-day through the same pattern of life. Wake up, swim practice, school, homework, swim practice, homework, sleep, and then I do it all over again. Emerson said “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...”, pointing that consistency causes mischief. Mischief of the mind can take many forms, and lately the hobgoblins are stirring up in my mind. When each day is the same and no change is being made, it’s easy for them to live there. Looking forward to the end of the week every week is causing me to not value or make the most out of my time. Not every day has to be filled with progress, but it feels that I'm slipping through the cracks and barely getting by. The bare minimum feels like an average standard. And I don’t want to end up living my whole life like this, where I can only be myself on the weekends. Because that’s not living for yourself. That’s surviving. And quite frankly, I’m tired of just surviving.

That brings me to another thought: when I was sitting there, watching the snow fall quietly onto the ground outside, I struggled to be alone with my thoughts. As someone who is particularly introverted, I think all day. In the shower, making breakfast, cleaning my room, it doesn’t really stop. So, I began to think about what would sound good on paper, what would be aesthetically pleasing to the ear. I thought about how to structure my sentences and began to fire ideas back and forth as if someone was watching my thoughts. Recently, it’s been a trend to call it the “internal male gaze” to clarify that a lot of women act as if a man was watching their every move, but I just see it as the “internal gaze”. And this is where I say that I don’t live for myself. Even in my deepest, inner being I think for others. I think about how I can repair others’ problems and I think about how others would see me sitting alone in my room looking out a window. I think about everything I say to people and every slip-up and every joyous moment and every argument. It doesn’t stop. So I guess that’s what I am writing about. Not my own, pure, raw thoughts like the untouched snow, but ones that I have been recycling for months, like brown slush that has been run over hundreds of times.