As of late though, and especially here at the UW, I find myself sympathizing with Robert Walton at the beginning of Frankenstein (Yes, I have started my reading for class early. Like a nerd.) I find that Walton puts it best:
"But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy; and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavor to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! ... It is true that I have thought more, and that my day dreams are more extended and magnificent; but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavor to regulate my mind" (Shelley 10).
Of course, I have friends, both here and at home, and am not so desperately alone as Walton; but my mind cannot help but reach out and clutch onto those words with the mighty grip of fellow feeling.
Andbutso, two of my desires for this upcoming year pertain to this subject of being alone. I would like to decrease my hermitic habits and become a bit more social. On the other hand, I also want to acquire a contentment for my "alone-ness." To learn how to experience the grace in loneliness, rather than the ache.
The closing video expresses this goal quite beautifully. I may have to watch it every day this year.
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