You don’t want peace, you want to deal with chaos peacefully

FOR THE LAST FEW DAYS, I’ve cherished my life by spending time in almost complete silence, relative solitude, no music, no distractions except old books, and minimum internet consumption. I’ve been reading, (hand)writing, and taking walks all week. I designed an intellectual retreat for myself, living deep in the Carpathian forests, at 1400m altitude, sleeping in a cottage built by Transylvanian Saxons during the interwar period… I could hear wild animals casually passing by during the night, always around 2AM, as if they were routinely going to work.1

Now I’m back home, writing this essay from my rather functional, unaesthetic attic in Brașov while listening to the rain. I’m able to keep the trend going: I still imbue my days with silence. I thus realize you’re quite fragile as an artist if you’re dependent on a place or context to create. Yet perhaps you need the that place-0 or context-0 which ignites introspection and contemplation in your psyche, gifting you not ideas but the beta version of an electrifying spiritual configuration; a “taste test” of the sacred… You’re finally capable to dream irrationally, unlocking intellectual ecstasy.

I’m reading 5 books and writing 3 essays simultaneously—gently educating myself to crystalize the divagations initiated in the Carpathians, likely titled Why Irreligious People Still Behave Religiously. Exactly like Eliade, I argue that all crises of modern men are religious crises, since they all stem from an awareness of a lack of meaning.2

“Such a deep silence surrounds me, that I think I hear moonbeams striking on the windows.” Lucian Blaga