Join the School of Genius

Guest post by J. M. Hawkins

Dear Soul,

I know you tell me that solitude is important for our relationship, but sometimes it feels like solitary confinement.

Dear Life,

Stay with me on this: solitude is solitary refinement. Solitude is “soulitude”: you can’t really have a soul without it. Solitude is a workshop, a back room where you take your life in for repairs.

But there’s more. Someone has said that genius is the ability to light one’s own fire. And solitude is the School of Genius—it’s the quiet place where you keep your inner fire burning.

So join the School of Genius—

Though some may think you rude—

Because the School of Genius

Begins in solitude.

And as an added bonus, some solitude will make you so much better to be around that your friends and family will probably insist you keep it up!

Today, I’ll breathe deeply, quietly, calmly—I’ll be for at least a few seconds, in the “still point of the turning universe.” What a view!

 *The Dear Soul/Dear Life dialogs by J.M. Hawkins are adapted and used by permission. They are excerpted from his collection, Word From Soul City and were used in discussion groups that met in cities across America in the 1990s and early 2000s in response to the Life That Loves to Happen seminars with Landon Saunders.