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22<br />
Snow melted, flowers bloomed, <strong>in</strong>sects droned, deer bred. Years passed, or m<strong>in</strong>utes. “I lost grasp of<br />
time,” Knight said. “Years were mean<strong>in</strong>gless. I measured time by <strong>the</strong> season and moon. <strong>The</strong> moon was <strong>the</strong><br />
m<strong>in</strong>ute hand, <strong>the</strong> seasons <strong>the</strong> hour hand.” Thunder cracked, ducks flew, squirrels ga<strong>the</strong>red, snow fell.<br />
Knight said that he couldn’t accurately describe what it felt like to spend such an immense period of time<br />
alone. Silence does not translate <strong>in</strong>to words. And he feared that if he tried a translation, he’d come across as<br />
a fool. “Or even worse, as spout<strong>in</strong>g off phony wisdom or little koans.” Thomas Merton, <strong>the</strong> Trappist monk,<br />
wrote that noth<strong>in</strong>g can be expressed about solitude “that has not already been said better by <strong>the</strong> w<strong>in</strong>d <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
p<strong>in</strong>e trees.”<br />
What happened to him <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> woods, Knight claimed, was <strong>in</strong>explicable. But he agreed to set aside his fear<br />
of phony wisdom and koans and give it a try. “It’s complicated,” he said. “Solitude bestows an <strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong><br />
someth<strong>in</strong>g valuable. I can’t dismiss that idea. Solitude <strong>in</strong>creased my perception. But here’s <strong>the</strong> tricky th<strong>in</strong>g:<br />
when I applied my <strong>in</strong>creased perception to myself, I lost my identity. <strong>The</strong>re was no audience, no one to<br />
perform for. <strong>The</strong>re was no need to def<strong>in</strong>e myself. I became irrelevant.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> divid<strong>in</strong>g l<strong>in</strong>e between himself and <strong>the</strong> forest, Knight said, seemed to dissolve. His isolation felt more<br />
like a communion. “My desires dropped away. I didn’t long for anyth<strong>in</strong>g. I didn’t even have a name. To put<br />
it romantically, I was completely free.”<br />
Virtually everyone who has written about deep solitude has said some version of <strong>the</strong> same th<strong>in</strong>g. When<br />
you’re alone, your awareness of time and boundaries grows fuzzy. “All distances, all measures,” wrote<br />
Ra<strong>in</strong>er Maria Rilke, “change for <strong>the</strong> person who becomes solitary.” <strong>The</strong>se sensations have been described<br />
by <strong>the</strong> ascetics of early Christianity, by Buddhist monks, by transcendentalists and shamans, by Russian<br />
startsy and Japanese hijiri, by solo adventurers, by Native Americans and Inuits report<strong>in</strong>g on vision quests.<br />
“I become a transparent eyeball,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson <strong>in</strong> “Nature.” “I am noth<strong>in</strong>g; I see all.”<br />
Lord Byron called it “<strong>the</strong> feel<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>f<strong>in</strong>ite”; Jack Kerouac, <strong>in</strong> Desolation Angels, “<strong>the</strong> one m<strong>in</strong>d of <strong>in</strong>f<strong>in</strong>ity.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> French Catholic priest Charles de Foucauld, who spent fifteen years liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Sahara Desert, said<br />
that <strong>in</strong> solitude “one empties completely <strong>the</strong> small house of one’s soul.” Merton wrote that “<strong>the</strong> true solitary<br />
does not seek himself, but loses himself.”<br />
This loss of self was precisely what Knight experienced <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> forest. In public, one always wears a social<br />
mask, a presentation to <strong>the</strong> world. Even when you’re alone and look <strong>in</strong> a mirror, you’re act<strong>in</strong>g, which is one<br />
reason Knight never kept a mirror <strong>in</strong> his camp. He let go of all artifice; he became no one and everyone.<br />
<strong>The</strong> past, <strong>the</strong> land of wistfulness, and <strong>the</strong> future, <strong>the</strong> place of yearn<strong>in</strong>g, seemed to evaporate. Knight