Soiltude
It is like alcohol. So bitter at first that you want to get it out of your system that very instant. Addictive when it starts settling comfortably in your head. It establishes comfort zones. It makes you want to resist change. It engenders satisfaction; in the very least, satisfaction that allows you to come to terms with your ineptitudes. It provokes thought, leads some of us to effusiveness on inert substrates (like paper). Concurrently, it avoids arguments or defensive stances. It makes one dislike acquaintances and value the ones closer to heart. It looks like a necessary condition for growing up. On this note, though in an entirely different vien, I am reminded of Alexander Pope's Ode to Solitude: I 1How happy he, who free from care 2The rage of courts, and noise of towns; 3Contented breaths his native air, 4 In his own grounds. II 5Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 6W...