I went down to Grand Ave this afternoon for lunch and ended up picking up two new books. One of them is an essay by Michel de Montaigne, On Solitude. It seemed an appropriate read for a day spent almost entirely by myself.
So far, it’s making me reflect more deeply on my reasons for leaving Los Angeles and moving to a previously unknown city in the Bay Area.
Rupi jam vincula dicas:
Nam luctata canis nodum arripit; attamen illi,
Cum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catenae.
[‘I have broken my chains,’ you say. But a struggling cur may snap its chain, only to escape with a great length of it fixed to its collar.]
-Persius, Satires. V, 158-60.
Damn, Montaigne. Way to call me out. Yes, maybe I moved to Oakland, but have I really left my burdens behind? Am I not still troubled by the same problems in my own soul that I had months ago ago in LA?
Montaigne says, “We take our fetters with us; our freedom is not total: we still turn our gaze towards the things we have left behind; our imagination is full of them.”
It’s true. I may feel a sense of freedom, but my heart is still heavy with the sadness from days long gone. The same fears and desires still dominate me to an extent I would rather not admit.