5 DAYS ALONE

As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will be simpler, solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness - See more at: http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-one-live-simply-according-thoreau-388568#sthash.VyLaD3ck.dpuf

As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will be simpler, solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness - See more at: http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-one-live-simply-according-thoreau-388568#sthash.VyLaD3ck.dpuf

As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will be simpler, solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness - See more at: http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-one-live-simply-according-thoreau-388568#sthash.VyLaD3ck.dpuf

As you simplify yourself, the laws of the universe will become simpler-Henry David Thoreau

Having spent the whole year in front of the computer in the office, I sensed that my soul or a certain filament sprung from its consciousness which used to be so full of life and activity, is now on its death bed. Regions of my inner world that I used to explore so often, have turned barren and life less. But it's not before I found the medicine did I recognize that I have a disease. I took an annual break from the office and traveled to my hometown Amalapuram, just to see my family. And there, after being forced to cut off from my role as a member of the society temporarily (AIRCEL 3G service is not there in my village. So I have to spend a lot of time without browsing internet in my I phone), did it occurred to my senses that a part of myself which I left back there in my hometown  has become a stranger to myself. As I walked through the garden where I used to sit and write my poems and songs, where I used to sit and ponder over the mysteries and meaning of life, where I used to have my morning coffee brooding over thoughts that teased me, I felt like a soldier who has returned from war and saw his son grown up but his son being not very eager to come and hug him.  That "me" which I so loved and disliked to depart from, ceased to be me.

What defines a man? Is it what he is when he is alone? Or how he behaves with society?
I tried to remind myself what I am when I am alone. Having been cut off from the internet and the city where I have spent a year wading through the rubbish the stupids of the world spoke, where I helplessly had to nod my head to lines these morons recite so excitingly, where I am robbed of my time even to chuckle at how stubbornly dumb the people of today's world are, I plunged into solitude like an athletic swimmer eager for his medal.

 As I flipped through each page of my mind, the society around me faded away and reality has extended her arms calling me to her embrace. Its then that my ears could hear the sounds the frogs are making and my eyes are opened to watch the leisureness with which the cats are walking around.

 There is an astonishing calm, a surprising soothing power and a pungent unorthodoxy in the stimuli that the wilderness of nature provide to a man attentive enough to hear what she has to say. Do we ever feel our consciousness more intensely when we are acting as a member of society than when we identify ourselves at the feet of nature, paying attention to what she is revealing? What can the sound a coconut flower makes falling to the ground has to do with who you are?  How can you know that without bending over, picking it up and marvel at the little wonder it represents? A filament of the universal consciousness, falling back to the ground having had its time. Does death sound like a tragedy to you then?

The garden lizard chasing an insect and eating it mercilessly, has to say what nature expects you to understand. That you should zoom out, far away into the stars, so that you can see the wide horizon over which all this makes sense. Or that this might be one of the illusions you are tempted to believe to be true, in your futile attempts trying to draw a circle on the ground to fit this earth. Why should we get drawn away by the interpretations when nature has its own crude and its own way of expression? Are you and me just filaments of the collective consciousness that popped up into reality to witness itself? Why should we call the Fire or the Sun as Gods when they are just a part of him? Why build temples to what you cannot see when you can get the divine revelation on the lap of the mother nature? Why would you chase God when he talks to you through a mustard seed sprouting out of the ground?

To plant yourself among men and to count yourself to be nothing more than a constituent of this world is to do yourself the greatest harm.

When man runs into society, into things that influence him, into things that make it look obvious to adapt, into things that turn his sight from his soul to outside happenings, first the petals of his soul are torn off. When he sacrifices his drive to the norms of the society, when his reality becomes the collective or dominant opinion of the society, when his will is not a bud that protrudes from his inside but rather a colored pot that follows the design of his fellows, it is too hard to imagine even a slice of his soul alive enough to hold one last breath. He is himself no more. He no longer knows what he wants, he no longer carries the question. He can no longer look into light. He runs from shadow to shadow.

It is important for us to return to our inner wilderness, our original weirdness, our natural drives. Not that we should be monsters in the society, but that we shouldn't be machines in the world. Is it a wonder that you are no longer interested in yourself? No. because you are running away from yourself. You are squeezing the very neck of your calling. You are torn off by your own greed. You are annihilated by your own vain attempts at imitating others. You assasinated yourself.

Return to yourself. And its possible only through solitude.

Having refreshed myself, I am ready for another year of fight in this world, this time without running away from myself. I mastered the art of embracing myself. Why would I need a friend?