May Sarton

But in solitude we are free to take off these masks, as there is no one to listen to or answer to but the voice of our conscience.

After a long and difficult relationship, the novelist Mae Sarton spent extended time in total solitude, and as she wrote in Journal of a Solitude, I begin to have intimations now of a return to some deep self that has been too absorbed and too battered to function for a long time.

Or as the American philosopher Thomas Merton echoed in The Silent Life, Not all men are called to be hermits, but all men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally.

When that inner voice is not heard, life is always miserable and exhausting.

[upbeat music] "Loneliness is the poverty of self.

Solitude is the richness of self." That's May Sarton.

I'm Darren, and this is Three Things for Tuesday, October the 13th.

President Donald Trump's proposed arrangement to purchase Russian diesel fuel is facing bipartisan criticism and questions about its legality.