Solitude

Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.

Simone Weil

In some occupations, some undertakings, one lives separate, alone, remote from society. In the process of any such occupation one must constantly choose between diversion or it's opposite. One cannot experience solitude by pursuit of diversion --the illusions of affection and place. One can experience solitude in quiet and in struggle against the desire to create illusions. Solitude can only be understood in the place where there are no diversions, no illusions.