Solitude

Last year around this time, I talked about the need for leaders to take time for themselves and read, think, and reflect about what it means to be a leader and what they need to further grow and develop as a leader.  I named the post "Fortress of Solitude", which referred to my childhood hero, Superman's place to relax, recharge, and reflect (see this great video clip from the 1978 Superman movie starring the late Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, and Gene Hackman).

Thomas Edison once said that "the best thinking has been done in solitude."  The Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho (who wrote, The Alchemist) said, "If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself."  Finally, the Belgian writer May Sarton contrasted solitude with loneliness (which I also posted about in "The Loneliness Epidemic" and "Ubuntu") and said, "Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self."  In other words, solitude is not loneliness and is probably a necessity for all of us at least periodically.

I suspect that Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins knew a thing or two about solitude.  Recall that Collins flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the moon thirty times in 1969 while his two crewmates Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.  During each orbit around the moon, Collins would lose radio contact with Earth for approximately 48 minutes, while he traveled on the dark side of the moon.  Collins never felt lonely though.  He wrote in the mission log, "not since Adam has any human known such solitude."  Rather than loneliness, he described his feelings during these 48 minutes as "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation."  

Collins admitted to himself, "I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life."  During his time on the far side of the moon, he famously wrote down, "If a count were taken, the score would be three-billion-plus-two over on the other side of the moon, and one-plus-God-knows-what on this side."

Astronaut Michael Collins took this photo of fellow Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returning from the surface of the moon in the lunar module, Eagle.  With the Earth behind the Eagle, Collins is the only human in the world not in this image!

As leaders, we may never experience the degree of solitude that Michael Collins experienced during the Apollo 11 mission.  However, what's important to recognize is that despite being the only human on the dark side of the moon, Collins didn't feel lonely.  Again, he described his feeling as "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation."  Just imagine what even a small amount of solitude can do for us!  

The Enlightenment era poet Alexander Pope wrote in his Ode on Solitude, "Happy the man and blest, who can unconcernedly find hours, days, and years slide soft away, in health of body, peace of mind, quiet by day, sound sleep by night; study and ease, together mixed; sweet recreation; and innocence, which most does please, with meditation."