[00:12.63]For me the most interesting thing about a solitary life,
[00:16.37]and mine has been that for the last twenty years,
[00:19.45]is that it becomes increasingly rewarding.
[00:23.40]When I can wake up and watch the sun rise over the ocean,
[00:27.20]as I do most days, and know that I have an entire day ahead,
[00:31.55]uninterrupted, in which to write a few pages,
[00:35.31]take a walk with my dog,
[00:37.13]lie down in the afternoon for a think
[00:40.52](Why does one think better in a horizontal position?),
[00:44.47]read and listen to music, I am flooded with happiness.
[00:50.38]I am lonely only when I am overtired,
[00:53.50]when I have worked too long without a break,
[00:56.35]when for the time being I feel empty and need filling up.
[01:00.53]And I am lonely sometimes when I come back home after a lecture trip,
[01:04.89]when I have seen a lot of people and talked a lot,
[01:08.21]and am full to the brim with experience that needs to be sorted out.
[01:12.75]Then for a little while the house feels huge and empty,
[01:16.54]and I wonder where myself is hiding.
[01:19.59]It has been recaptured slowly by watering the plants, perhaps,
[01:24.03]and looking again at each one as though it were a person,
[01:27.33]by feeding the two cats, by cooking a meal.
[01:31.16]It takes a while,
[01:32.32]as I watch the surf blowing up in fountains at the end of the field,
[01:36.56]but the moment when the world falls away,
[01:38.76]and the self emerges again from the deep unconsciousness,
[01:42.76]bringing back all I have recently experienced
[01:45.77]to be explored and slowly understood,
[01:49.16]when I can converse again with my hidden powers,
[01:51.93]and so grow, and so be rewarded, till death do us part.
