We all — adults and children, writers and readers — have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.
Solitude is an attitude of gratitude ... It is a state of mind, a state of heart, a whole universe unto itself. The early contemplatives in all traditions knew this secret of happiness -- that being alone was a great gift. And whether or not we sit upon the mountain top or kitchen stool, whether we seek a sacred place or simply stir the soup, the message is the same. For what does it mean to be alone, if not to be all one. To be who you are already in your deepest self, to be happy.