True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible… In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives.
What are People For via Brain Pickings
Two or three times in my life I've consciously sought out solitude precisely so that I could free myself of troubling obligations and be myself. Berry articulates my feelings more eloquently and more succinctly than I ever did. Strange that I ran across citations of Berry that moved me deeply in two different contexts today.