3
" Such an incredible, stupefying realization: I am not, indeed, the center of the universe.
Not! Not! Not!
And the overwhelming gratitude, the flooding relief that comes from finally being able to give myself the permission to lay down that excruciating, exhausting burden of needing to prove to the world, every waking moment, that I am, indeed, undeniably, irrefutably The Center of the Universe. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
8
" I don't believe in funerals.
Funerals aren't for the dead. The dead are gone. They couldn't care less.
Funerals are for the living.
They're for the people trying to feel better about the things they could have said, the things they could have done for the dead while they were still alive.
The dead don't give a damn.
The dead couldn't care less about what's being said to them, about them.
Hell, they're dead.
The dead know the living aren't there for them, but for themselves. To feel better, to feel less guilty, less regretful, to feel loved, better appreciated by all the other living people who, like them, should have paid attention to the dead while it still mattered, while they were still alive.
So screw funerals.
Forget the dead.
Tend to the living.
Before it's too late.
Before they're dead "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
10
" Reading a newspaper account of one young woman's fatal accident on a midsummer morning a few years ago got me thinking about how I would have liked to have departed before my time if that had been my destiny.
If I'd had to die young, hers is the death I would have chosen.
She was twenty-two, the story disclosed, bright, talented, beautiful, her future spread before her like a brilliant, textured tapestry. She'd just graduated from a prestigious eastern university, had accepted a communications position with a New York television network, and would depart the following day on a four-week holiday in Europe before embarking on her promising career and the rest of her exciting life.
On that golden summer day, the young woman had just finished her morning run. She had sprinted the last half mile, then stopped abruptly to catch her breath. She was bent at the waist, hands on her knees, eyes on the ground, her mind a world away, perhaps in Barcelona or Tuscany or Rome, exulting in the enchanting sights she would soon see, the splendid life she would have.
It was then that the train hit her.
Unaware, unthinking, oblivious to everything but the beguiling visions in her head, she had ended her run on the railroad tracks that wound through the center of her small Oregon town, one moment in the fullest expectancy of her glorious youth, adrenaline and endorphins coursing through her body, sugarplum visions dancing in her head, the next moment gone, the transition instantaneous, irrevocable, complete. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
11
" On that golden summer day, the young woman had just finished her morning run. She had sprinted the last half mile, then stopped abruptly to catch her breath. She was bent at the waist, hands on her knees, eyes on the ground, her mind a world away, perhaps in Barcelona or Tuscany or Rome, exulting in the enchanting sights she would soon see, the splendid life she would have.
It was then that the train hit her.
Unaware, unthinking, oblivious to everything but the beguiling visions in her head, she had ended her run on the railroad tracks that wound through the center of her small Oregon town, one moment in the fullest expectancy of her glorious youth, adrenaline and endorphins coursing through her body, sugarplum visions dancing in her head, the next moment gone, the transition instantaneous, irrevocable, complete.
If I'd had to die young, hers is the death I would have chosen. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
12
" Winter again. The summer people have gone. The early morning walks are solitary once more. Fog wraps the ocean and sky like a wet, gray glove. Sprinting through the frosty dune grass, my dog Buddy emerges soaked and grinning. He's become a man-child, his boundless puppy love and mindless exuberance caroming off the walls in a muscular body. He lives by one rule: To be alive is to be gloriously happy. Not a bad way to be, I often remind myself.
Comfortable in the ebb and flow of each other's idiosyncracies and needs, he keeps me company while I work, I join him often in his play. His unflagging high spirits urge me to cram activity and joy into every waking moment as he does. By so doing, I tell myself, I will multiply my allotted time by dog years and dilate the remaining seasons accordingly. A good way to look at life, I figure. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
14
" The Art of Self, I've learned, is indispensable to material success but corrosive to the human spirit. What's more, much of the misery in the world, I've decided, is caused by people who take themselves too seriously. Certainly, most of the unhappiness I've brought on myself has come from trying to impress others.
The people I find most appealing nowadays are those so secure in who they are, so lacking in ego, pretense, and guile, that they can allow others simply to be themselves. It is, I think, the rarest of privileges, the freedom to be completely oneself in the company of others. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
15
" Putting thoughts into words is vastly different from putting truth into words. For words are not truth. As ardently as writers sort and select and polish their words, at the end of the day they are still words. They are not, in themselves, truth. However carefully we choose our words, no matter how eloquently we compile and conjoin and convey them, they remain just words, merely signposts that point to the truth, as Eckhart Tolle put it. Just as preachers, politicians, PR spin masters and the media can’t create truth by writing or speaking words they say are true, authors can't validate truth by putting it into print. And the rest of us can't know it by simply hearing or reading the words. We can only find our way to truth by following the signposts and ultimately believing. It all comes down to believing, to faith, for there is no proof this side of the big dirt nap. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
18
" It scares us more than anything except death. Being alone.
Our fear of solitude is so ingrained that given the choice of being alone or being with others we opt for safety in numbers, even at the expense of lingering in painful, boring, or totally unredeeming company.
And yet more of us than ever are alone. While many more Americans have their solo lifestyles thrust on them--people die, people go away--a huge and growing population is choosing to be alone.
Nonetheless, we persist in the conviction that a solitary existence is the harshest sentence life can mete to us.
We loathe being alone--anytime, anywhere, for too long, for whatever reason. From childhood we're conditioned to accept that when alone we instinctively ache for company, that loners are outsiders yearning to get in rather than people who are content with their own company.
Alone, we squander life by rejecting its full potential and wasting its remaining promises.
Alone, we accept that experiences unshared are barely worthwhile, that sunsets viewed singly are not as spectacular, that time spent apart is fallow and pointless.
And so we grow old believing we are nothing by ourselves, steadfastly shunning the opportunities for self-discovery and personal growth that time alone could bring us. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
19
" There's one thing you ought to know about old people," Alberto Terégo told me on our early morning walk on the beach.
"Like what?" I asked my friend in reply.
"Like old people don't mind if you kill them," Terégo said. "Just don't give them any more crap while you're doing it."
"Are you talking about yourself?" I said. "You're telling me you'd rather have someone kill you than give you a hard time?”
My head was starting to hurt. It usually did when I talked with Terégo, but never so soon into our daily conservation. He was grinning now, knowing he had me again. I just stared at him. He has this uncanny knack of making me feel he's laid a booby trap of punji sticks on which I'm about to impale myself.
“That's ridiculous," I said finally, feeling like a kid for not being able to come up with a better response to his bizarre suggestion.
“No, it's life,” Terégo said, his grin growing larger.
“What's life?” I said.
“Taking crap,” he said.
"Taking crap is life?" I said.
The grin hung ear to ear now. “It's what nice people do,” Terégo said. “There's an 18th century proverb that says we all have to eat a peck of dirt before we die. We do it from an early age, so old people have been doing it for a very long time, way beyond the proverbial amount that broke the camel's back.”
“Eating dirt is life?” I said, feeling the pain grow under my arched eyebrows.
"That's right," he said.
"Eating dirt?" I repeated dully.
"We do it to be team players, so we don’t rock the boat, to go with the flow," Terégo said. "We put up, shut up, get along--no matter what--with people even the Dalai Lama would slap silly. We defer to their foolishness, stupidity, biases, racism, ego, telling them what they want to hear, keeping quiet when we ought to be speaking up loud and clear. We put a sock in it even though it chokes us. We do it so we won’t offend, to fit in, be neighborly, sociable, kind. We do it so people will like us, love and reward and hire and promote us. We do it to be successful, secure, happy."
"We eat dirt to be happy," I said, my eyes starting to glaze over like frost on window panes in deep winter.
"You see the supreme irony in that," Terégo said, the triumph in his voice almost palpable, galling me no end. "
― Lionel Fisher , Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude
