September 28
People seek out places of retreat: country houses, beaches, mountains — and you too are given to longing for such things. But that is unphilosophical, since you are free at any moment to withdraw into yourself. Nowhere does a person withdraw more quietly and with less disturbance than into his own soul. Grant yourself this retreat continually — and renew yourself.
Meditations IV,3
Listening mode
People seek out places of retreat: country houses, beaches, mountains — and you too are given to longing for such things. But that is unphilosophical, since you are free at any moment to withdraw into yourself. Nowhere does a person withdraw more quietly and with less disturbance than into his own soul. Grant yourself this retreat continually — and renew yourself.
A trip has the advantage that it can be explained. You are away, the out-of-office message says so, and no one expects much of you that week. The distance takes off your hands something you find hard at home: it gives you permission.
A retreat that happens only in your attention has no such justification. You sit at the same desk, you are reachable, and from outside you look busy. If for ten minutes you don't respond to the next thing, no one notices. That is exactly why you have to grant those minutes to yourself, and that is often harder than any booking.
There is something else as well. An unfamiliar place shows you something new. When you turn inward, you find at first only what was there anyway: the half-finished thought, the irritation from the morning, the question you have been putting off for days. It is not quiet there from the outset. Undisturbed, perhaps, because no one is watching how long you take.
Sometimes you stay a while anyway, and the irritation stays too. Then you get up, and the desk is the same.
