'Leave Me Alone' Is solitude such a terrible thing to wish for? I think not

Liberty: A Lake Wobego... Garrison Keillor Best Price: $0.10 Buy New $2.47 (as of 10:46 UTC - Details) One short weekend, so much to do – an invitation to go swimming at night by moonlight, the Iran protest march downtown with our mouths taped shut, a dance at the Eagles Club with a hot horn band playing ’70s funk that propels people onto the dance floor as if shot from guns – but here I am stuck with houseguests who are unable to sit in a room without me for more than 15 minutes. They follow me around like faithful collies. We ran out of conversation on Friday and they’re here until Wednesday. I have had un-Christian thoughts about them. I may have to run away from home.

Pontoon: A Novel of La... Garrison Keillor Best Price: $0.10 Buy New $3.39 (as of 09:15 UTC - Details) The problem, dear hearts, is a common one here in the American heartland: an inability to express personal preference in simple declarative sentences, no modifiers.

E.g., "I vish to be alone."

Is this a terrible thing to vish for? I think not. One loves company and then one loves uncompany, just as one enjoys sunshine/darkness, summer/winter, funk/folk, b&w/color, all sorts of dichotomies. Solitude is recognized by most world religions. Hairy-legged hermits sit in prayerful contemplation in their mountain caves and nobody thinks less of them for it. So why can’t you or I spend a couple of hours alone in an undisclosed location?

There is nothing odd about wanting to be alone. It doesn’t mean that I am spray-painting Nazi slogans on the walls and fantasizing about getting even with them what done me wrong. It doesn’t indicate male menopause. It only means that I am experiencing Personal Male Secrecy Syndrome (PMSS), the urge common to all men to climb a tree and sit on a high limb for a few hours. This is a powerful motive in most literary careers. Yes, John Updike had a great gift, but also John Updike preferred not to spend his life at a conference table but rather in a quiet corner with a yellow legal pad and a rollerball pen and write what he wished, nobody looking over his shoulder and saying, "Could we change that ‘me’ to ‘you’?"

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June 25, 2009