Aaron Rodgers and the darkness
or, I believe in a thing called self-reflection
Last week I did an intro to a new series I’m going to writing about here, but sometimes those plans get interrupted. Such as when Aaron Rodgers goes on The Pat McAfee Show to talk about how he’s going to be spending 4 days in complete darkness.
Here’s the clip:
My initial reaction was to get some jokes out, because that is my initial response to most things. But the more I thought about it, the more I questioned my knee-jerk reaction. Aaron Rodgers has come under fire for many things he has said on his appearances on McAfee, and I certainly understand a lot of it. His anti-vax stance is one that I very much disagree with, and he has a tendency to lean into some needling comments around that (pun very much intended).
But this comment? On its face, I understand it. He’s going into total darkness and isolation for 4 days. Voluntarily. That is something that, from the outside, seems a bit odd.
Why is that odd, though? It’s “odd” precisely because it is an experience that is on the outside of what a lot of people - me included - are familiar with. It is outside of my experience - and it’s certainly not anything I would ever do - so I label that as odd. I label it as strange.
The root idea - the idea of solitude to be in-tune with yourself - is an idea that is as old as time. As someone raised as a Christian, my mind went to The Bible first. From 1st Kings 19:11-13 (NIV), which found the prophet Elijah hiding in a cave:
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great a powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and stood at the mouth of the cave.
It’s one of my favorite passages. What Elijah was looking for was not in the bombastic but in the quiet.
In God in Search of Man, Abraham Joshua Heschel - the great Jewish philosopher - said:
To think of God, man must hear the world.
In No Man Is An Island, Thomas Merten stated:
The more each individual develops and discovers the secret resources of his own incommunicable personality, the more he can contribute to the life and the weal of the whole. Solitude is as necessary for society as silence is for language and air for the lungs and food for the body.
Later in that same work, Merten said:
True solitude cleans the soul, lays it wide open to the four winds of generosity.
Merten has a lot of things to say about the nature of false solitude, but we’ll save that for a bit later.
In keeping with the idea of Rodgers going into his darkness retreat as a way to clear his mind and help him make a very important decision, we can find passages from the Buddhist Scriptures:
No distractions can touch the man who’s alone both in his body and mind…so will I ever tend delightful and untroubled solitude, bestowing bliss, and stilling all distractions. And from all other cares released, the mind set on collecting my own spirit. To unify and discipline my spirit I will strive.
The idea of wisdom in solitude goes beyond religious texts. In Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper states
Only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear.
In Happiness & Contemplation, Pieper writes
Man’s ultimate happiness consists in contemplation.
In Of Solitary Life, Petrarch says
[Solitude] rehabilitates the soul, corrects morals, renews affections, erases blemishes, purges faults, reconciles God and man.
From Blaise Pascal:
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in the room alone.
Jean de La Bruyere:
All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.
There is power in solitude, but one must be wary. In a bit of philosophical humor (there is such a thing), Seneca recalls this tale of Crates in On Living to Oneself:
[Crates] noticed a young man walking by himself and asked what he was doing all alone. To which the man answered, “I am communing with myself," and Crates told the man, “Pray be careful, then, and take good heed; you are communing with a bad man.”
In other words, when you spend time in solitude, remember who you are spending that time with. Earlier, I made mention of Merten’s thoughts on the the idea of false solitude (compared to true solitude), and that touches on the same topic. The intentions must be pure and the mind must be truly looking for truth and search of self.
False solitude separates a man from his brothers in such a way that he can no longer effectively give them anything or received anything from them in his own spirit.
As we wind down, let’s turn to Ruth Krauss’ Open House for Butterflies (a book illustrated by the great Maurice Sendak
Everybody should be quiet near a little stream and listen.
If it’s not already clear, we can go on and on, but I’ll stop on that final, beautiful thought. Solitude is not only helpful to better understand yourself, it is necessary for each and every one of us to truly understand who we are and to grasp our place in the grand scheme of it all.
That’s not to say that we all should enter into 4 days of total darkness and solitude. Maybe it’s stopping to smell the roses. Maybe it’s taking a few minutes in the middle of a busy day to close your eyes and block out distractions. Maybe it’s to literally sit near a little stream and listen.
In a response to a lightly mocking Mitchell Schwartz, Rodgers quoted Ted Lasso’s “Be curious, not judgmental.”
We don’t know the path everyone is on. We don’t know the journey each person has taken to arrive at this exact moment. We would all be better to keep that in mind; to keep an open mind. To understand that our personal experience is not necessarily the experience of those around us.
We should strive to love and understand the journey of those around us, even if - especially if - it doesn’t line up exactly with the journey we have taken. There is much to be learned in solitude, and there is much to be learned by those who seek happiness, peace and understanding in ways outside of our own experience.
If we are all looking for happiness and wisdom, we should not rush to judgment as to how others search for those things or when they come to those things. To be in solitude - true solitude - is to search for truths. There’s a beauty and power in that.
Love this read man! You’re honestly one of the few people on twitter that I genuinely follow. No clickbait. Your opinions are thoughtful and genuine. Good work man!
Very thoughtful and well written. A cool breeze after too many fever-pitch hot takes.