The Power of Loneliness
The Turning Feral Journal - Day 42
Day 42: There is a value to being alone. Months or years on end where you have limited connection to the outside world, can focus on faith, and are not distracted by the opposite sex or alcohol. At first read, you may think I am referring to the time when I moved out to the woods and began to “turn feral,” but you would be wrong.
You see, I found the gift of unmitigated self focus many years before I moved to the woods, during a time when I was living a completely different lifestyle… a time when I was alone as the only American at a Saudi Arabian university. Bizarre, right?
So, how did I end up studying for an MBA in Dammam, KSA? Well friends, it all started from a fear of debt. You see, all of the American universities I applied to wanted me to dive headfirst into hundreds of thousands of dollars of unforgivable debt just to get a questionably valuable piece of paper. After some research I realized that two countries offered high-level MBAs fully subsidized (free) to accepted foreigners… Finland and Saudi Arabia. And having already braved the cold of Russia for a few years I figured I would give the desert a try.
Fast forward to showing up at the gates of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals at 3 am in one hundred plus degree heat with two duffle bags ready for a two year adventure. I was the only western student with classmates from Yemen, Afghanistan, Egypt, and every other country who had a bone to pick with the USA. My bed was a cement pad in a small dorm connected to a communal block of showers that only flowed rust-colored water. The building itself was flanked by the student mosque where amateur calls to prayer belted over the loudspeaker five times a day. What I quickly realized was that I had stepped into an open air prison, one with limited freedom to travel as my passport was taken from me and I was watched by the Mutawa (religious police) like a hawk everywhere I went.
But, things that seem tough often come with benefits if you are willing to search deep within yourself, and search I did. Instead of tucking my tail and running (which I thought about), I embraced the idea of being in that prison. For the seven months in which I stayed I had time to focus on my true self. I started each day with yoga during the first call to prayer, followed by the first of many workouts. Between classes I would eat surprisingly clean food (think hummus, salads, and meat), read some of the classics I had smuggled into the country, study in the library for the algorithms course that kicked my butt, practice my arabic, workout some more, and then cap the day by setting visions for what I thought my future held.
I followed the same disciplined and lonely routine for seven long months. The same things, the same food, and the same unfriendly faces. Every. Single. Day. And it went like that up until the death threats became too frequent and the consular general advised that I leave (which is a story for another day). Unbeknownst to me, that time being forced to look inward and focus on the self in an austere environment was a primer for my eventual Turning Feral.
Years later when I moved alone to the deep woods of Idaho I was prepared for what the solitude would feel like and I was ready to embrace it. Now, I am not saying that you as a reader need to go and commit a crime to get locked up in order to gain a similar style of extreme alone time (though, I am sure some parents out there have considered that option), but I offer this as an example of how dedicated time to focus on yourself, as much as you can find, is a powder keg in helping you navigate your inner feral self.
Daily Prompt: When was the last time you spent more than a day alone with your thoughts? No wifi, no connection to others with cell phones, just you and some books. What did you do with that time? How did you feel? How can you find more time like this in your life today?:
Motivational Passage:
Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.
-Thomas Merton
Rewilding Action: Knife sharpening. This is something I have become passionate about over the years, especially when it comes to skinning knives. However, the art of sharpening started in the kitchen for me. I was frankly tired of grabbing expensive knives out of our drawer only to find myself unable to cut through a tomato or lemon without squishing it instead of slicing it. So, after some quick googling I purchased a diamond steel rod to begin my sharpening journey. I will spare you a how-to guide because google is rife with great videos on this, but keeping our kitchen knives razor sharp was a culinary game changer. Getting this honed bled into other styles of sharpening, but as a reader looking for something to work on while in suburbia… start with the knives in your kitchen!