I still hold what I said about crowds. Avoid the many, avoid the few, avoid even the individual — and I mean it, for now, while you're still becoming who you are. But here's the thing I didn't say: the solitude I'm recommending only works if you're worth being alone with.
Crates saw a young man walking by himself and asked what he was doing. Communing with myself, the young man said. Be careful, said Crates. You are communing with a bad man.
This is the part of solitude nobody warns you about. Withdrawing from bad company does no good if the company you retreat into is also bad. The fool left alone doesn't find peace — he finds the version of himself that fear and shame had been keeping in check. The desires that were suppressed by the presence of others come out when no one is watching. Solitude amplifies what's already there. It's a tool, not a cure.
What I'm actually asking of you is harder than retreat: that you become someone whose own company is good. That when you sit with yourself, what you find there is worth sitting with.
I have reason to believe you're moving in that direction. I've heard you say things recently that didn't come from the surface — phrases with weight behind them, words that had a foundation. That kind of speech doesn't happen by accident. It comes from someone who has been paying attention to themselves, who has been honest about what they find.
Keep going. Speak and live in a way that nothing keeps you down. Change the prayers you've been making — stop asking for what other people happen to want, stop asking for what fortune can give and take. Ask for a sound mind, first, and then a sound body. Ask for that openly, frequently, without embarrassment.
Here's today's thought, from Athenodorus, and it's one I want you to keep: know that thou art freed from all desires when thou hast reached such a point that thou prayest to God for nothing except what thou canst pray for openly.
Watch what you pray for in private. Watch what you wish for when no one can hear. The desires you're afraid to voice in public are the ones that still own you. When your inner life and your outer life are the same — when what you want in secret is exactly what you'd say aloud — you've arrived somewhere real.
Live among men as if God beheld you. Speak with God as if men were listening.
Same person, everywhere, always. That's the whole project.
Yours, in plain sight,