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Dr. Darrell White's Personal Blog

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Unsought Solitude: Sunday musings…3/17/19

1) Irish. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all, Irish or otherwise. Legends abound about Patrick of Ireland. Was he a monk as told by the Church? A heathen who did so much good that he was beatified regardless? A scholar who was in the vanguard of scholars who escaped the Dark Ages and “saved civilization” by decamping to Ireland?

Who cares? Slainte.

2) Gueridon. The little table upon which rests a basket, candle, and decanter to be used when decanting older (usually red) wines. Confession: I do not own one, nor do I own a random wine bottle basket or candle holder for decanting.

Who cares? Slainte.

3) Luddite. A young author was quoted in yesterday’s WSJ as preferring to read and write on various electronic utensils. No biggie, really, until she tossed shade at those of us who prefer pen, paper, and the various reading materials that come in the form of ink on stock of some sort. Something about not “offending luddites” by her comments. Does my preference for holding a newspaper or turning the pages of a real, live book when consuming the written word make me a luddite? At the moment I am typing on a ludicrously powerful laptop and bemoaning the fact that the best voice recognition software is not supported on my digital platform of choice. Two days ago I did laser surgery utilizing a couple million $$ worth of ridiculously complex software and hardware. Can you be a luddite if your daily existence is intertwined with tech that is just a tiny bit shy of quantum computing?

Who cares? Slainte.

4) Sears. Yesterday’s WSJ also included a lengthy treatise on the demise of the once dominant Sears company and brand. If you are of a certain age Sears was as important to your family’s commercial life as any bit of the internet is today. The Christmas Catalog was informally known far and wide as the “Wish Book”; as a kid you looked at the catalog and dropped hints (along with turned down pages) as the Holidays approached. Without knowing so, Sears was the Amazon of its day. Every small town had a little storefront Sears on main street long before the advent of the strip mall mega-store. You ordered your merchandise by phone and picked up up at the delivery store. Pretty much anything other than groceries could be bought that way, including your house.

So what happened to Sears? The catalog was shut down in 1994, right when the internet was getting its start. All it would have taken was a single visionary to see that moving the catalog online would have protected the singular power of Sears to define what it meant to be a department store in the internet age. Instead Sears remained mired in the old-school business model of bricks and mortar behemoths, merging and cleaving along various entity lines with a plethora of like-minded companies that will in all likelihood share its fate. Kmart, Ames, and others are but a memory. How long before they are joined by the likes of Khol’s and J.C. Penney?

All for the want of a single visionary in a company that employed hundreds of thousands of people. It makes one wonder about other bricks and mortar businesses. At least it makes me wonder. What of education, specifically college education? Will we have all of these colleges and their campuses in the future? Do we need all of those administrators whose ranks have swelled in response to a government regulating the physical space occupied by 18-22 year olds? Who knows. What of healthcare? Having just had a totally new way of delivering eye care shot down by an organization whose administrators could not see past their new bed towers, could not see past how the bricks and mortar paid their salaries, I wonder how long it will be before an internal visionary makes a move. Health care is the biggest rent seeking economic sector in the U.S. (with education not too far behind), one in which lobbying the government to maintain the status quo appears to be the most important job of senior administrators. Will this save healthcare from a Sears-like fall, or are we just one visionary away?

Slainte, indeed.

5) Solitude. Beth has been away this week tending to her filly on the winter show circuit and fitting in a bonus visit with “Lovely Daughter”. While she is away I have been mostly at work or traveling for work, and thus have been surrounded by other people for the bulk of my mid-week waking hours. Indeed, weekdays are easier on my soul because the alone hours can be shortened by simply going to bed early and sleeping them away. No, it’s the time off, the weekend time that I otherwise so cherish that is hard. Beth knows this, and so these trips are fewer and further between than they should be; she enjoys her barn and horse time immensely. Even typing these words makes me feel a bit guilty.

There is an “uncle” in the Hurst family, one of those people who has been around the family in a lovely and loving way for decades and is such a part of the scene that all of the grandchildren were astonished to discover some years ago that he is not a “real” uncle at all. Jay is an artist, a sculptor, and by necessity his has been a life of mostly solitude when he was working. This always seemed a bit odd to me because Jay was always such a full participant in all of the family dialogue at holidays and the like. How could it be that such a social creature spent so much time alone while creating? As much as I enjoy writing I couldn’t imagine hours upon days sitting alone at a keyboard. Indeed, my favorite writing times are when I am cocooned in a corner surrounded by the activities occurring just outside my sight. I know they are there if I need to jump in for a fix.

Jay has retired with his wife to a thriving community of like-staged folks and is thriving in the bustle of a little micro-society. His is a tale to sow optimism in the face of the lonely later life of another of Beth’s (real) uncles, also an artist, whose illness drove a wedge between him and most everyone else. Much, much later in life the solitude that he sought and which sought him began to ebb. His presence at family gatherings both sad and gay brought enjoyment to all of us, himself included. Both men lived decades in which they spent the majority of their hours alone. There is a significant difference however, and it is the difference that makes my little sojourn in solitude bearable: Jay emerged from solitude at the end of the work day into the embrace of a loving wife with whom he shared his evenings and weekends.

He wasn’t truly alone, he only worked alone.

Beth’s uncle, The King, passed away this week. He suffered a catastrophic stroke a few months after losing his sister, my mother-in-law, and gaining a daughter-in-law. While still more alone than not he was nonetheless close to two grandchildren, and seemed to be moving closer to his children and their varying degrees of happiness. There had been a rapprochement with his brother, words of kindness expressed between the two older men after decades of estrangement. The King had lived a mostly solitary life for years. Unlike Jay (and me) he seemed to be lonely for many of those years. How wonderful that he was able to shrug off at least some of that cloak in his last months, to replace it with the embrace of children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces.

I am lonely this weekend and I confess that it is a selfish loneliness because I know that it will be short lived. Beth will return tonight. My Man Cub and his sister The Nugget might be healthy enough for me to drop by, or their little family might swing by for a sunny dip in the hot tub. There will be corned beef and cabbage tomorrow night at dinner for us all regardless. Solitude for me is partly the side effect of obligation (I have a job) and partly choice (the kids were sick and I stayed home).  Jay and The King teach us the lessons that there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. One can be alone if one has love to look forward to when the solitary hours have passed.

Long live The King. Slainte.

I’ll see you next week…

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