Solitude: The Art of Living With Yourself

by John Selby

Book by Selby, John

Genres: Self Help, Psychology

140 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1981

About the author

I was lucky enough to grow up on a cattle ranch in Ojai California, and I still feel deeply grounded in country life. Then at 16 I spent a remarkable exchange-student year living in the bustling city of Durban, South Africa. Ever since, I've felt an integral part of the world community.

Then I went off to Princeton , mostly to satisfy my mother and grandparents. I received a great education, especially in English literature and history - but majored in Psychology, and ended up doing early EEG brain research for NIH studying the cognitive dynamics of meditation and psychedelics. I was my eating club's token cowboy, and fenced on Princeton's varsity team.

Rather than going to Vietnam, an unjust war which I opposed strongly, I went to the San Francisco Theological Seminary and became a Presbyterian minister (my family's faith) and a spiritual therapist. But my driving interest in Buddhist meditation, and my budding friendship with the philosopher Alan Watts, led me away from church work.

Instead I went to L.A. and participated in the American Film Institute's early internship program, studying screenwriting for several years, getting a film agent (Reese Halsey) and working in Hollywood. But there was little interest in my spiritually-grounded screenplays, so I attended the Radix Institute for Integral Therapy, finished my grad work and then worked as a therapist in San Luis Obispo.

All along, I was also developing a cowboy/jazz band with my brother, and working on my fiction and song-writing, A bit bored with the life of a therapist, I headed way down to Guatemala to spend a year at Lago Atitlan, writing songs, researching shamanic practices, and writing my first published book, Powerpoint (Warner). Barely escaping death in Guatemala, I spent almost a year up on my parents' new ranch in Idaho. On a whim I accepted a lecture/seminar tour in Europe - I went for 3 weeks and stayed for 7 remarkable years.

They loved me in West Berlin in the mid-eighties, and I set up a thriving therapy practice, wrote 2 dozen self-help books for the German market - and met my wife Birgitta, who I've been together with ever since. Moving to Switzerland, Birgitta and I developed a new idea (for then) called the self-help cassettebook (100 pages of text leading to an embedded cassette with audio guidance). We sold the concept to a major publisher there, and spent the next 4 years producing 24 cassettebooks. During that time we moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, then Santa Barbara, then over to Kauai - where we raised our two sons. After the hurricane, we hand-built a sugar shack and lived a quiet country life, writing more books, producing self-help audio and video content, and briefly heading an early online therapy company called BrightMind.

But Kauai was a hard place to advance a writing career, even though we made lots of breakthroughs guiding people in meditation and emotional growth via audio/video support.
In 2010 we moved to our current home in Santa Cruz, where we attempted to interject short-form mindfulness meditation into the Microsoft community, then shifted to Plantronics where we co-produced several at-work mindfulness apps. Realizing the need for professional guidance in the rapidly-expanding cannabis community, we then raised capital and developed the Mindfully High program which includes the Cannabis For Couples book and audiobook, and the High Together App.

I've spent most of my adult life developing a fiction style and genre that's only now matured into serious English literature - it's just taken me that long to realize my deeper vision in fiction. I'm blessed with a great film agent who's shopping the miniseries in Hollywood, so I seem to have come full circle. Right now I' m also helping authors to manifest and publish their books, while continuing to develop new audio and video programs to expand the High Together App. I look forward to your perspective on both my fiction and nonfiction writing!

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short--meant to be a workbook with reflections and meditations, which I didn't do, to be fair and honest. I just read it through. Discovered I'm already quite comfortable with being alone with myself. I can see how this would be helpful for someone who needs help feeling comfortable alone. My favorite quote: "Solitude is like an undeveloped plot of land in an otherwise over-developed region--it is where you can go to encounter feelings of wholeness. It provides you with the breath of fresh air that revitalizes your spirit. This is true whether you are living primarily alone or with other people. Solitary space, in which you can experience your own presence, also offers you a unique opportunity to contact your deeper self. In the same way that we are fighting to preserve natural parks and open space throughout our country, each of us needs to make an effort if we are to preserve personal solitary space within a culture that increasingly crowds our inner environment with distractions--with busyness,continual socializing, and vicarious experience via the media."

[J Crossley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book would be very helpful for someone who has difficulty spending time alone. The author mentioned that those he counsels who have the most difficulty with spending time alone are those who are addicted to social interactions. I thought about this and it makes sense. If you are used to only spending time around people, you may not know (or feel comfortable) spending time by yourself. Selby has exercises throughout the book. He also emphasizes meditation as a technique that is helpful for learning to be comfortable with yourself.

[Kandace · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good set of questions to ponder as you deepen your relationship with yourself. Lots of guided meditation opportunities. A book I will be coming back to in my meditation sessions. Biggest question - are you your own best friend? What is keeping you from being your own best friend? Solitude is necessary to deepen your relationship with yourself.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Selby ermuntert, Zeit mit sich alleine zu verbringen (statt sie mit übertriebenem Sozialleben zu vermeiden), da dies eine Chance bietet, verschiedene Entwicklungsthemen anzugehen. Und als Werkzeug dazu bietet er eine Art Atemmeditation an, die in leichten Abwandlungen Zugang zu gerne weggedrängten Gefühlen und Blockaden ermöglicht.

[The Angry Lawn Gnome · Rating 1 out of 5]

First off, the title is misleading. It should say something akin to Meditative Techniques, With a few Unrelated Anecdotes about Loneliness or Solititude. Honestly, I got the sense that he would be offering the same advice to someone with terminal cancer, a hangnail or the heartbreak of psoriasis. You feel lonely: meditate. Your parents (or whomever) was mean to you and you can't let go: meditate. One size fits all, in all cases, apparently.

As to Selby's writing style, he appears to be angling to be declared Emperor of the Ellipsis. Sit in a quiet place...still your breathing...blah blah blah...quack quack quack. And since the same advice on meditative technique is repeated just about word for word in each chapter...sit in a quiet place...still your breathing...and then imagine how annoying that would be after reading it for the tenth time.

Second, though I'm far too lazy to actually look up the exact passage, Selby says at the start of the book that there'd be nothing religious about it. Then manages to pop in at least one, though I believe there were more, explicit dogmatic statements about a kind, benevolent presence who runs the universe. He also manages to make the very odd claim that religions were started to meet and fulfill individual spiritual needs. Which is of course utter nonsense, and utter nonsense that was popped in as "proof" of how you would know his techniques were effective: You'd feel the touch of some deity or other.

Selby would probably be a nice person to talk to in person, and I guess I'll damn him with the faint praise that I think he means well. But if this book had run longer than its 135 pages, there's no way I could have kept at it. A bait and switch is still a bait and switch when it is done with no harmful intent, or possibly even conscious knowledge.