Isolati [ ahy-suh-lah-tee ]
plural noun, singular isolatus
1 lonely people engaged in creative pursuits
2 lonely people and artists considered as a class
The Isolati, Isolated-Literati.
That Dreadful class to which I sometimes belong.
It feels like a generational problem sometimes, that’s what the romantic in me says. That even a few decades ago great groups of friends, literati, drank together, lived together, and produced the masterpieces that the Isolati dwells on today.
Of course, there was no golden age of social brilliance. It has always been a struggle to find likeminded people. Perhaps what makes the problem of the Isolati so obvious today is the Internet, not only as a cause, but as a magnifying glass on the vast amounts of clever, lonely people who endlessly spew words into the ether.
They come to romanticize their isolation, to valorize their antisocial nature. But I think of a line from the Wilhelm I Ching, in his commentary on the Image of Hexagram 58, Joy:
Knowledge should be a refreshing and vitalizing force. It becomes so only through stimulating intercourse with congenial friends with whom one holds discussion and practices and application of the truths of life. In this way learning becomes many-sided and takes on a cheerful lightness, whereas there is always something ponderous and one-sided about the learnings of the self-taught.
I have been blessed with friends, lovers, teachers and students, from which I have learned more than my books.
Yet still, in those lonely days, and in the parts of a man that often remain lonely till death, I feel strongly the need for more.
I can only imagine this feeling in the many suffering with true isolation in this life.
That this world is not enough, that our lives are not enough.
There is in an honest mind a hunger for friendship that can never be quenched.
One sees their fellow humans and sees ten thousand brothers, ten thousand friends.
But in the Isolati, resent has blinded them to this, they see idiots, fools, scum. They know themselves to be the only living boy in New York. The next Poet Laureate. The Son of God, and a million other titles to which the hopeless world is blind.
Of course, only they can see clearly. If the world was wearing its prescriptions it would laud, worship, and fall at the knees of these lonely minds.
There is, of course, only resistance. A resistance to the infinite flow and magnetism of life, which apparently all of these idiots are flowing with, but not you. Therefore, this flow is wicked, stupid, malignant. Stasis and rigid stillness are proper and good!
If this piece seems a bit disjointed or emotional, I am simply trying to dredge this disgusting vanity, pride, and immaturity from myself. To love the world as it is, which, may be easier for me than you. I have love, friends, projects and such to keep me from really falling in. But God, when I get too close to that precipice it’s wretched.
Here is my bit of advice, if friendship, socialization, kindness, and humanity are stupid.
Then with God’s grace, Dare to be Stupid!
Lovely.
Wonderful writing and great points. All of man is my brother but nothing is without strife