Home > Author > Michael Harris
61 " After the conscious mind hands over its controls, the brain remains supremely active, all on its own—one of its greatest tricks is the “blank” image it projects to us—a velvet curtain to ward off the interfering ego; a tinted screen to subdue the backseat driver called “I. "
― Michael Harris , Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World
62 " Mornings are the best chance we get, every day, to recall our solitude. They are brief glimpses into a default mindset that arises before the world pours too much noise into our eyes and ears. "
63 " To some degree, we all live out our emotional lives through technologies. "
― Michael Harris , The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection
64 " Yet every time we use our technologies as a mediator for the chaotic elements of our lives, and every time we insist on managing our representation with a posted video or Facebook update, we change our relationship with those parts of our lives that we seek to control. "
65 " He believed that the greatest benefit of solitude is its ability to engender new ideas. A leading scholar of his day, Storr analyzed the lives of great artists—Beethoven, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Sexton, the list goes on—with a psychiatrist’s eye. And he found that the eureka moment (“aha moment” in today’s Oprah terms) does not occur at conference tables. Why does the Buddha meditate alone beneath a tree? Why does Jesus spend forty days in the wilderness? Why does Muhammad withdraw for the month of Ramadan? For that matter, why do so many tribal cultures incorporate a solitary quest into a child’s rite of passage? Solitude is built into the stories we tell ourselves about illumination "
66 " when I see teenage girls burrowed into their phones on the sidewalk I think of monkeys picking lice out of each other’s hair. "
67 " showing that solitude enhances one’s mental freedom, unshackling us by minimizing the intrusive self-consciousness that the presence of others inevitably produces. "
68 " Dr. Small points out that this atmosphere of manic disruption makes my adrenal gland pump up production of cortisol and adrenaline. In the short run, these stress hormones boost energy levels and augment memory, but over time they actually impair cognition, lead to depression, and alter the neural circuitry in the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex—the brain regions that control mood and thought. Chronic and prolonged techno-brain burnout can even reshape the underlying brain structure. Techno-brain "
69 " individuation "
70 " As Jung has it: “a being distinct from the general, collective psychology”31 will experience “an enriching of conscious psychological life;”32 being a true individual is a “coming to selfhood or ‘self-realization. "
71 " This is the achievement that Jung described as “individuation”—the ability to appreciate yourself as a creature separate from your species. As Jung has it: “a being distinct from the general, collective psychology”31 will experience “an enriching of conscious psychological life;”32 being a true individual is a “coming to selfhood or ‘self-realization.’”33 In other words, solitude relieves us from a nervous hive mentality; it reminds us the self is no monster after all. "
72 " It takes a week or so for withdrawal symptoms to work through a heroin addict’s body. While I wouldn’t pretend to compare severity here, doubtless we need patience, too, when we deprive ourselves of the manic digital distractions we’ve grown addicted to. That’s how it was with my Tolstoy and me. The periods without distraction grew longer, I settled into the sofa and couldn’t hear the phone, couldn’t hear the ghost-buzz of something else to do. I’m teaching myself to slip away from the world again. "
73 " W. H. Auden wrote, “The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me. "
74 " When we make our confessions online, we abandon the powerful workshop of the lone mind, where we puzzle through the mysteries of our own existence without reference to the demands of an often ruthless public. "
75 " The cliché of the painter locked away in a studio, the writer in his cabin, the scientist in her late-night laboratory, is no accident. And Storr’s assertion was backed up in 1994 when the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the originator of the concept of “flow” in work) found that teenagers who can’t stand being alone tend to have lessened creative abilities.24 Only in solitude could those youths develop the creative habits—journalling, doodling, daydreaming—that lead to original work. "
76 " It’s easy to say this is just about “shifting baselines.” But adopting a culture of public confession is more than that: It marks the devaluing of that solitary gift—reverie. "
77 " only someone who feels at risk of being abandoned would be uneasy with periodic detachment. These, then, are solitude’s uses: new ideas; an understanding of the self; and closeness to others. Taken together, these three ingredients build a rich interior life. "
78 " One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "
79 " Bob Samples: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift. "
80 " Without absence in our lives, we risk fooling ourselves into believing that things (a message from a lover, the performance of a song, the face of a human body) matter less. De "