Alone/Others
I’m someone who often needs time alone so I can think and manage my personality. If I don’t get time alone I feel like I’m drowning intellectually and, also, I get grouchy.
I’m lucky I have a wife with an almost intuitive understanding of when I need to be alone. I’m lucky my marriage is strong enough that the wife doesn’t take it personally when I want to take a walk or a ride by myself.
Sometimes the desire to withdraw from the company of others is strong. I feel if I could just go a week without talking to anybody, I would then make deep and profound blog posts and make great progress on the book I’m working on. (Though with a week alone, I might just go an hour down the road to Galveston and watch the tides and the ships.)
As my life is structured now, a week alone is not in the cards.
It’s jarring to go from time alone back to being in contact with others. I feel that my thoughts will be lost. Though, fortunately, that’s not really the case.
My greatest difficulty is in finding the balance between time alone and meaningful interactions with others. How does one successfully possess both temperaments required to make the best of such disparate demands on the intellect and personality?