Finding Solace

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”

Note: Honestly, I’d fallen in love with this word, Solace for a long time. But did you notice, when you pronounce the word; Solace, you’re ending it with a smile? Or am I the only one who felt so? Mm.. It may seems to look awfully obsessed with selfishness. But I want to find  put my meaning to it.. 

There in these excerpts from Maria’s diary; “eleven minutes”, I have developed a liking – is it the words she expressed or is it the writing style? Something that wishes me to write in her way and I know it’s a wish, neither two individuals are alike… Maybe it is way too long I haven’t read a fiction, but I found it nice… I found solace in these words. Her story of womanhood, hopes, love, sex, dreams, and aspirations, of heartbreak and losses, of life and I can quiet relate her life and the bluntness of it.

“Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.”

“I went into a café, heard a voice, and it was as if God had thrown a pebble into that place. The waves of energy touched both me and a man sitting in a corner painting a portrait. He felt the vibrations of that pebble, and so did I. So what now?… I am aware that there are certain phrases which are not written by me, but  a woman full of ‘light’; I am that woman though I refuse to accept it.” This creation of Paulo Coelho are the experiences solely by hers but inspired by her. The understandings of the mindset of such a person, of a woman, and seek solace from the way that she held herself… 

“So-lace” is a beautiful word. This word originates from the Old French solas, from Latin ōlācium (“consolation”) Solace is an imaginative abode where you can shed your disappointments, your pain, sufferings and that longing you hoped but didn’t work, everything that touches your life your endeavours for when the mind can’t bear the suffering, you seek solace in different kinds of hope. Beyond years, it is the essence of letting out the losses, even as we are being told of a death, each note on mourning, each passing moments of life moving, beautifully carrying, bearing and rejoicing the life we have lost – a life we could not see or appreciate until it was taken from us.

As David Whyte writes, “And above all, how will you shape a life equal to and as beautiful and as astonishing as a world that can birth you, bring you into the light and then just as you were beginning to understand it, take you away?”

Solace is sometimes the little snippets we write daily during the morning pages eagerly, waiting to pour it all out finding solace in the arms of words and imagery. The beautiful woven words in ink, inevitable wayward thoughts that couldn’t resist the need to be there on paper, cursively and clearly. To be read umpteen number of times, the freshness and the feelings to be felt profoundly.. The value of writing lies in writings itself…to understand in words, infinity and beyond… A solace in calmness, to grip out the depressed mind after years of turmoil, navigate our upheaval minds that seemed so in flux and so uncertain even before the collective challenges and circumstances, all here and all over the world written down in letters to all of us.

As David Whyte writes, “Solace is not an evasion, nor a cure for our suffering, nor a made up state of mind. Solace is a direct seeing and participation; a celebration of the beautiful coming and going, appearance and disappearance of which we have always been a part. Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, to the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of”…

“We now live in a world where we’re connected to everything except ourselves.”

“There is something sacred about stillness. The world has not changed outside our bounds, we just realize peace and tranquility are possible, if we make space for it.”

– Ed Lehming, From Where I Stand

We tend to connect with everything, that has simultaneously isolated us. From being busy that we often forget to tend us, our needs and solitude. Interestingly, many of us in the beginning of this lockdown was obsessed with a particular worldly stimulation, for commuting daily work, or engaged in the need to dress up and be there. Nearing the midst of this stay-at-home vacay, the fear of nothingness has gone by partly, I suppose, despite the alarming news that we hear daily… we have come in terms with our solace…

To find solace in solitude, one must be willing to surrender to the facet of boredom and rest assured happens due to its own stimulation. Make time, whether every day or every week, to just sit or lie down on the floor or greenery, with our thoughts, our feelings, with a moment of stillness. Without knowing within us, there is no way to figure outside us. We have to learn it by our own and ironically, nobody teaches us of ourselves or life. We’ve to explore and put a meaning to it. Solace in Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start. What is your solace?

P.S: This is the 19th post of #BlogchatterAtoZ

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