People

It is important neither to speak with - nor listen to - people if you wish to know peace. People are horrible. They want you to come to them; they are lonely and troubled without you. Truly they suffer in your absence and feel it as a void within their hearts, and when you come at last with extended hand to comfort and enjoy each other's company they trouble you with tones of voice and flippant, caustic comments; act as if you owe them something; entreat you to hennish tales, rumors, and private judgments cast down upon strangers, always from a lofty pace of cowardice. People are petty children without reason, thought, or understanding. They do not wish any more of themselves than ignorance, nor can they see beyond their own inflamed sense of self. People are a massive unchecked ego. They have no redeeming virtue.

A person, an individual, alone in a room, huddled over some careful, private task -- this has dignity. There is beauty in the lone animal practicing his nature's inclinations. But as few as two of them become a bumbling of the task. Two must split attentions. Half a mind is left to know the work before them, half is set to watch and judge the other; to guess at how the other might be judging in return. Two minds are two minds split; what halves remain can hardly make a whole. And they and all are better off in solitude where men and minds and hearts may truly grow.

Take people in as small a dose as can be had and feel no guilt denying them your stay. They only want you there to hurt you. They only need you there to lean against, to gauge how much they weigh.