Carl Jung, the great psychologist of the inner life, believed that life develops in stages, some centered on the outside world, others focused almost entirely on self-awareness and the search for meaning, something younger people don’t have the time or opportunity to pursue much.

They are too busy looking ahead and behind.

Jung believed the end stage of life was about making sense of what came before it, and perhaps if you are self-aware, of your mistakes.

That’s how it was and is for me.

Jung didn’t mention that such self-examination requires the courage to brave the answers to questions like that. Ouch.

That kind of reflection was really only possible, at least for me, in solitude. Those phones make it difficult or impossible for many people.

I came up to a mountain in upstate New York to sit and read alone in a cabin for a year until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I had a cell phone, but there was no service there.

It was a bloody and exciting mess. I moved away from everything familiar, hurting people I loved along the way, and found a self I liked and wanted. Because I was alone, I could think.

In old age, aloneness can be chosen, or, as is more likely, not chosen at all. Lots of older people have no choice. Their loved ones are often gone, their work is finished, and the only clear options are isolation, disappearance, or losing their homes, thanks to the many gifts of corporate America.

In my hospice and other work, I encountered lonely older people everywhere I went. I am a loner by choice – a book writer for decades – I wrote and worked alone and rarely interacted with strangers. I still don’t.

I’m used to being alone. I like it now, that is my choice, thanks to my great luck in finding Maria, or in her finding me. I’ll never really know which.

Solitude is where I can think. People often confuse solitude with aloneiness or isolation. Isolation means I’m cut off from the rest of the world by situations I can’t control.

I have to be honest: in old age, many people don’t respond to me or even look at me when we pass one another. My blog has spared me isolation. The culture does its best to ignore and figure us out, except for buying our health care.

But I hear from scores of people every day of my life, some friends, some haters, looking to see who they can hurt. Either way, blogging as I do can’t really be done alone. The whole world can see me, for better or worse.

My animals – the wonderful dogs, cats, donkeys, and sheep, and my wife  – keep me from solitude and isolation. My work with outside people – the food Pantry, hospice, immigrant children – keeps me connected and gives my life meaning.

Solitude is chosen, not forced.

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Living in America in 2026, solitude can be a blessing. I can shut out the hatred, bitterness, and cruelty of people outside. I know how to be alone and shut out the world. I’ve done it for years.

Solitude opens me up to the wonders of a world without all the noise, distraction, hatred, awful politics, and social spinning. I’ve never been a part of anything but me, my work, my wife, and yes, my dogs. I’ve avoided labels all of my life, and I’m not getting any now. I think for myself.

Outside in our world is a culture created by Corporations, they are everywhere now, like ticks in the woods, sucking blood and choking off individuality and independence. I am grateful to be as far as that world as I can get. The billionaires are eating our world to pieces. And they have little use for older people; they won’t be around long enough to buy things.

We have to give ourselves meaning.

Every day, I find at least some time to immerse myself in the joyful work of just being. I don’t need it to be or go anywhere else. That is a wonderful and surprising gift of aging.

When the outside world, with its noise, clatter, greed, and hatred, pressures me, I go silent and am alone with myself.

It is here in the well of self that my unfinished self, my true self, lies crying out for attention.

Solitude is not a way of running away from our lives. It’s the time to sort it all out, soon for the last time.

Solitude is a gift that comes naturally to the one who takes the time and the space to explore themselves.

The good news about solitude is that it is my natural state, a gift of reflection that makes my life a pleasant place to be now.

Once I knew who I was, I was never alone.