As the sun rose over the tops of the trees, the man stirred from his dreams.  There was no reason to leave the bed this morning, as with every other morning, but he did so all the same.  It was not the man’s financial needs that moved him; he had built the cabin himself and produced everything he needed in the acres surrounding it. It was not that he had any need for social interaction or culture; he was only saddened by other people and felt that the natural world was enough culture for any man.  No lust or ambition could be found within the man; in achieving peace of mind, he had abandoned the primal desires of the body, and what sort of ambition could be pursued in the wilderness? What drove this man to leave his bed, his room, and ultimately his cabin was a form of motive power so awesome that many are destroyed by the very idea – his own free will.  Selecting clothes was not very difficult for the man.  He had tailored all of the shirts himself as was the case with his pants, socks, and undergarments.  Looking to the back of the wardrobe, he noticed a haphazardly sewn shirt, and reminisced with a smile.  Sewing was not a skill the man had considered necessary in the beginning, and the shirt had been kept as a reminder that even a small negligence could cause an incredibly difficult winter.

Fully clothed, the man exited the cabin to collect his breakfast.  He went first to the meat locker, where he decided on bacon – Though it was typical of him to enjoy sausage in the morning, something felt different about this day.  Making sure to thank the pigs on the way to the chicken coop, he ventured inside to collect his eggs.  He paused for a moment to observe the chickens. Occasionally, the man wondered if it would be nice to be a chicken.  To be sure, they led short lives typically punctuated by a grisly death, but it was not the end of their lives that interested him.  He noticed how they wandered around, occasionally pecking at the seed on the ground, constantly jerking their heads as if taken by surprise. What must that be like, he wondered, to have a brain that cannot remember? It was as if every time a chicken blinked, the world opened up for the first time before their eyes. Shaking himself from his reverie, he chuckled at the idle thoughts and made his way toward the dairy barn.  Just as he was about to begin the process of collecting milk, he recalled the week he had spent harvesting apples from the tree behind his cabin. Thinking juice to be a nice alternative to his usual milk, he trekked back up to his home.

Sitting down to enjoy the fruits of his labor, he noticed his chair was becoming slightly uneven. Smiling at the prospect of perfecting his chair in the afternoon, he opened himself up to the possibility that breakfast might be infinitely more enjoyable when eaten at a slight angle. Finishing his meal, the man cleaned his dishes and took the chair to his modest shop.  Upon arriving, he felt a weariness uncommon to his typical morning. Setting the chair beside a sawhorse in the shop, he made his way back to the cabin.  He assured himself that he would enjoy this unexpected nap as much as he had enjoyed the bacon that had likely caused it.

Back in bed, he ventured once more into his dreams. This time, however, he was not to return. There would he stay forever; in the clothes he had sewn, upon the bed he had crafted, in the room he had modestly furnished, entombed in the cabin he had built. The man, however, was not dismayed. For the man who has all he wants, becoming a part of his dreams is all that is left. On this particular day in his dreams, he was fixing a chair, but who knows what tomorrow might bring…

(Inspired by Alexander Pope’s “Ode on Solitude”)