I knew this always, and yet, I have either forgotten, become stupid, or been blinded by tricks. Perhaps all three. The following passage from Aldous Huxley’s “After Many a Summer” says it all:
“…From solitude in the Womb, we emerge into solitude within the Grave. We pass our lives in the attempt to mitigate
that solitude. But Propinquity is never fusion. The most populous City is but an agglomeration of wildernesses. We exchange Words, but exchange them from prison to prison, and without hope that they will signify to others what they mean to ourselves. We marry, and there are two solitudes in the house instead of one; we beget children, and there are many solitudes. We reiterate the act of love; but again propinquity is never fusion. The most intimate contact is only of Surfaces…Pleasure cannot be shared; like Pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give Pleasure to our Lovers or bestow Charity upon the Needy, we do so, not to gratify the object of our Benevolence, but only ourselves. For the Truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel, in order that we may enhance the sense of our own Power and this we are for ever trying to do, despite the act that by doing it we cause ourselves to feel more solitary than ever. The reality of Solitude is the same in all men, there being no mitigation of it, except in Forgetfulness, Stupidity, or Illusion; but a man’s sense of Solitude is proportionate to the sense and fact of his Power. In any set of circumstances, the more Power we have, the more intensely do we feel our solitude…”
And still we continue to operate, without the slightest allusion to the above.
