Don't seek solitude
We are to be found in the company of men, living together, sharing, and fulfilling purpose together
Man is helplessly dependent on man.
Whatever ideology, mindset, consciousness, practices, etc., you have today, you learned them from someone or somewhere. Even if you have the novelty of any knowledge or invention, you built it upon the work of some other person. This argument destroys the concept of “my truth” or “my point of view.”
No.
Your point of view is not “yours.” At best, it is an upgraded version of someone else’s point of view and perception about life or a particular matter.
There are several applications of this reality.
One way to apply this reality is in the concept of shared or collected living. I was speaking with my friend a few days ago, and we were bemoaning how, after university, most of us in our circle were intentionally cut off from other individuals because we wanted to build our lives independently.
We adopted phrases like,
“This life is a personal race...”
(Yet you buy things from people in the market, duhhh... Why don’t you set up your farm and grow your own food since you want to be independent?).
Another foolish phrase is
“Build in silence...”
If this phrase means
“Avoid genuine distraction so that you can reach your goal,”
Then it is a perfect mindset. But if the phrase means
“Isolate yourself while you’re building; only come out when you’re successful.”
Then, you’re living in self-deceit.
If I wanted to rephrase the above submission, this is what you’re truly saying:
“Isolate yourself from your FRIENDS or from those you’ve shared with one way or the other, and build with NEW people.”
Do you know why?
Because you CANNOT truly build ANYTHING in isolation.
If you’re reading books, you’re reading someone else’s thoughts and ideas. If you’re listening to sermons, you are listening to someone’s thoughts and ideas, etc.
But do your previous and current relationships need to suffer because you are building?
So, if you “built in silence,” what you did actually was cut off your old friends to meet new people who don’t know you or give a damn about you.
How awful it is with us sometimes to be more comfortable meeting new people and investing in new relationships than maintaining old ones.
Covid taught the whole world the importance of shared spaces.
It is life. It is nature. It is design.
You don’t own yourself. Sorry. As long as you cannot create something out of nothing, you are owned. This is why “freethinking” or “self-governing ideologies” are fancy terms for self-deceit. Know when to join a serious church and build your spiritual life with the community of believers, rather than looking for solitary mountains and bushes to spend years alone seeking God.
Did you know that most of the use of the word “you” in the Epistles was not referring to an individual but to the church?
“You are a royal generation, a holy priesthood, a peculiar people...”
The “you” there was not referring to a single individual but to a collective people: the church. That’s why the letters of most of the New Testament were written to the church and not to a single individual.
Your purpose is tied to the earth. And the earth is made up of man and other things.
So, your purpose is tied to humans and other things. Some people have not become relevant because they have isolated themselves from humans. It is humans that will answer your hard questions. It is humans that will provide your means of livelihood. It is humans that will be the source of giving and receiving expressions of love and affection.
Solitary life is not God’s design for any man.
We are to be found in the company of men, living together, sharing, and fulfilling purpose together.
This leads me to another point in this discussion: No man knows it all.
Everyone will always lead and influence others from the limitations of their understanding of life, God, etc. This is why it is your responsibility to search out whatever you hear before making it “your” truth. As good as it is for thought leaders, pastors, etc., to teach and preach the truth, it is your responsibility to find out if what you’re hearing is really truth.
Your clergy can find out that he’s been teaching wrong for years and change his teachings, but the effect of those teachings over the years will not be eroded in a day.
In fact, millions can lose their lives because of a wrong teaching. If the peddler of such an error finds out the truth later and repents, the victims of his errors will not be spared the consequences automatically.
So, before you make a truth your truth, find out if it is really the truth, for you will not be spared from the consequences of error because you were ignorant.
Anyway, I believe that God or the cosmos must have a way of balancing this helpless consequential disequilibrium.