This is day two I am on my journey in pursuing my Vision Quest. I faltered even before I managed to start. Today I feel so terrible. I slept for 14 hours and didn't do much today. I am supposed to be in isolation for 90 days so that I can focus on my training.
Two days on a strict regimentation made me feel terrible. I was exhausted too. This is the initial setback before I can get into the routine of the training.
One of the things I set myself to do is to cut off all form of communication with the outside world. This is necessary if I want to condition my mind to the extensive regimentation of the training. Hence, I won't be listening to you in the Evening Drive. I need to have a clarity of purpose to achieve my cause.
Beside preparing me for a 4 hours marathon in 2020, the Vision Quest is a journey of the mind and body. Isolation is a resource. The Buddha did it, Jesus did it, Muhammad did it and of course great thinkers like Henry David Thoreau and Brend Heinrich did it.
Being in isolation is a lost tradition. With technology and the coming of social media platforms, we hardly heard of people voluntarily opted to be alone. The antithesis of isolation is not being social but rather the feeling of loneliness. There is a big difference between isolation and loneliness. Isolation is a voluntary action of solitude while loneliness is being ousted from the mainstream.
The Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius went on isolation and recorded his thoughts in The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Until today his works are used as part of the Stoic Philosophy. Issac Newton made his discovery about gravity while he was in his countryside farmhouse at the height of the black plague when Cambridge had to be partially closed.
I'm not implying that I with make any great discovery by being in isolation. I just need sometime for myself to set course for my journey forward. This is necessary since I want to reinvent myself after going through a troubling 20 years struggling with the most insidious illness ever known to me.
I made it for 3 weeks in September. Now to see if I make it for 3 months. You may want to consider it as me going on a seafaring journey. During the time I will be spending my time reading, running and writing. Human contact is very minimal.
If everything is OK, I should be contacting you again 1/1/2020. Until then keep in mind that I love you so much as a kindred spirit. My life would have take a different turn without you kind gesture and your doting laughter.
Until then, peace out.
Since Cera,
SJ
2/10/19
No comments:
Post a Comment