I'm not particularly sure why, but I seem to have an inclination to visit the places people don't really want to visit. Ever since I was a child I never really cared about visiting countries people usually go to. London, Paris, New York, Las Vegas; these places have never really interested me, I don't seem to mind never seeing these places in my life. When I used to spin the globe my mother got me after I threw a rather dramatic fit in Staples, I would always be drawn to countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Azerbaijan. For every single one of my friends, their dream holiday destination was London, or San
Francisco but for me it was Tbilisi, Baku, Nur- Sultan or Ashgabat.
There was something in me that always told me that these places would make me happy, I couldn’t seem to understand it, but recently I realized that I believe that these are the places where I will find solitude, these are the places where I would get my space. You see when you visit places that no one really talks about, you don't see tourists, you don't see people who have come to visit, you see the local population, you feel like an outsider, an infiltrator who’s found a lost city. When you look around and see no one like you, that is when you really feel alone, and that, that is solitude.
How often can we really be with ourselves?
How long can we really be with ourselves?
Five, maybe ten minutes, or maybe even a day, but what after that, you bump into a family member, a neighbor, the creepy fellow on the balcony across your house who seems to have a sort of hobby of staring at you. How can you really be alone if you know everyone around you? When we talk about solitude, we mistake it for those five or ten minutes that we manage to spend with ourselves. I for one do not believe that solitude is a state of mind you can just achieve in five or ten minutes. I believe solitude is a state of mind you achieve once you
realize that you are indeed alone, I believe it is much more than being alone, it is a state where you can your thoughts can sit back, breathe and just co-exist.
I for one, experienced solitude while traveling on a highway a few kilometers outside Baku. My driver, Rovshen, who was also one of the kindest people I have ever come across was driving at around one hundred and ten kilometers an hour. My crumbling relationship with my father meant that there was no talking, just silent travelling. As I stared at the flats of Qaradagh, breathing in the chilly Azeri air, I truly felt alone. My mind was at peace with itself, anxiety sort of took a back seat, I was able to think, to accept my thoughts and I was at peace with myself.
That is when I realized, I was in solitude.
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