This post is inspired by a great article I read recently called “Solitude and Leadership” published in the American Scholar, which recites a lecture delivered by a Yale professor at the American Military Academy at West Point. It brought out a lot of thoughts and emotions I always felt or wanted to say but didn’t. We live in a world where social ‘norms’ define our lives more and more every day. Advocating solitude or wanting to be alone goes against the grain of modern society. Its almost heresy.
Yet what this article reminds us is of its profound importance. We are constantly diffused more and more by the ever increasing connectivity to other people, the constant messaging, emailing, facebooking, tweeting, bbm-ing, and everything else-ing… we blend with the rest, we loose our personality. We become victims of the herd mentality. We stop imagining. We don’t stand out. And we don’t cherish Gods greatest gift: the ability to use our brain, to think in solitude deep and hard, to concentrate on things that matter, uninterrupted, without worrying who’s liked our latest Facebook upload or what the latest covers story in New York times is.continue reading »
