Meet John Doe and Solitude

It snowed overnight Saturday and Sunday night, maybe there is 3 inches on the ground, but Boise appears to be done with snow until Christmas. I'm glad I am not in So Cal! It has been raining for days, it poured over the weekend, and there appears to be no end in sight. At least Idaho knows how to deal with weather. No one in So Cal knows how to drive in the rain.

This weekend I watched Meet John Doe made in 1941 with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. Meet John Doe is an anti-facism film and I was surprised how timely this movie is today. Frank Capra was apparently not happy with the ending and I agree that it seems wrong. It seems to me that if Barbara Stanwyck is going to be redeemed at the end, she should show some signs earlier, and since she doesn't, maybe she should have been rejected by Gary Cooper on the rooftop and then jumped herself, or Gary Cooper should get pushed off the rooftop and become a martyr for the movement. But then that is too heavy for 1941 and a film trying to be hopeful.

Yesterday I learned how to use the timer on my camera and took some practice shots. I want to take a picture of me in my Christmas presents from Mom so I can send it to her and I want to take it today, while there is still snow. I feel a bit silly taking pictures of myself by myself, but I will get over it.

And I have to confess, Mom also sent a care package with two wrapped gifts and I opened one already. Mom always gives me the same two gifts at Christmas, a calendar with every family member's birthday written in it, and a box of chocolate hazelnut shells. She did not give them to me one year, because she thought I was bored of it, but I really look forward to them. So, Mom sent two wrapped gifts, but I know what they are, and I looked at that wrapped box of chocolates for a week before I finally opened it. I don't know if they are always Belgian chocolates, but these are, and this year they came in a tin painted with an east coast beach scene.

I was trying to finish Wisdom of the Ages by the end of the year, but it doesn't look like I am going to make it. The next enlightenment topic is Solitude, with a poem called Solitude, that everyone should find initially familiar, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

The author talks about when you are positive, you attract more positive and when you are negative, you attract more negative. That goes with the poem, but I think that it is off the topic and besides, maybe you have to be negative alone, but you never have to weep alone. Ella must have had only fair-weather friends.

I have a whole book just on this topic (Solitude, A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr) and the book ends with a piece from The Prelude: The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth,

When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.

There is grace in solitude and in solitude we can return to our better selves. Everyone should learn how to be alone (and how to be still). It takes some practice, since in solitude we also often face our not-so-better selves.