| Acknowledgments |
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xiii | |
| Preface |
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xv | |
| Introduction |
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xvii | |
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Finding a Path with Heart: The New Hermits |
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1 | (18) |
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Living alone, the new millennium's predominant lifestyle |
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Overcoming the onus, going against the grain, tasting the silence, vital explorations, restructured priorities, assuming the awesome responsibility for ourselves |
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Susan's basic life, Ed's private passions, Ric's patient wait, William's relinquished burden |
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Gone to Innisfree: Journey to the Undiscovered Country |
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19 | (8) |
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A six-year retreat at the beach, the dizziness of freedom, essential confrontations, vital answers, a separate peace |
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Daring aloneness, surviving the memories, trusting the stillness |
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In search of God, meaning, self, the real American Dream |
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Deconstructing, reinventing, recouping passion, being wise in time, a final reckoning, Ann's ``Terrors of a Woman Alone.'' |
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It's About Time: The Only Real Wealth |
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27 | (18) |
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Ways to stretch, alter, enrich, illumine time |
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Susan's Idaho Walden, seeking answers in Santa Fe |
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The search for more at Fahrnwold |
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Telling ourselves what we long to hear |
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Through Loss, Sorrow, Denial: The Long Passage Home |
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45 | (12) |
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Vanishing cream for the mind, telling secrets we already know, heeding the 2:00 A |
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voices, a young boy's anguish, two lifelong disavowals, an old man's closure |
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Embracing grief, enduring sorrow |
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The need to remember, accept, forgive |
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God's three tries, a desperate yearning to belong |
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Being white, black, brown in America |
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The Unabashed Joys of Self-Indulgence |
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57 | (12) |
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Contented singles, giving and getting, successful coupling |
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Kathy's selfishness as a lifestyle, replacing one with many |
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Alexis's new best friend, self-bestowed luxuries, guilt-free pleasures |
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Taking love where you find it |
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Elise's self-nurturing, William's soundless company, Cynthia's chameleon identity |
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Finding true grit, your real colors alone |
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The Dragon at the Gate of Solitude: Loneliness |
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69 | (12) |
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Befriending the gray ghost of solitude, waving the white flag of surrender, letting in loneliness |
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Leslie's great pain, Bianca's new life script, Rita's loss of serenity, Roy's simple antidote, Kelly's confrontation, Victoria's excruciating triumph |
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Rest stops on the journey to ourselves, great good places, temporary respites, lifelong warranties |
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Alone Together: Making the Best of Both Worlds |
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81 | (14) |
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The privilege of being ourselves with others, having one's cake and eating it, too |
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Holly's hermit husband, Helen's lonely marriage, William's half-a-loaf relationship, Jean's dependent separateness, Denise's deliberate independence, Alexis's tribal concept |
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Unions based on personal space, individuality, independence |
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Giving and getting from others what we cannot give ourselves |
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The Tao of Now: Passion for Each Passing Moment |
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95 | (12) |
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Making each moment magical, the ordinary magnificent, every second precious |
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Brian's return to newness |
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Jane's lost and found childhood |
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Being a tree, the prayer of patience |
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Jeri's intentional simplicity, the need for stillness, a call to silence, the secret of One |
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Helen's resolute awareness |
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The Great American Mantra |
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Conscious living, conscious dying |
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Sex and the Solitary Person: Life Without Physical Intimacy |
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107 | (12) |
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A truth women instinctively know, few men will admit |
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The Pee-Wee Herman Option, the Hertz-Avis Plan, Margaret's earthy delights, Sharon's daring personals ad, replacing sex with sensuousness |
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Wielding the penultimate power in the battle of the sexes, counting on concupiscence, learning to rely on other organs, figuring out what you got from sex, and reasonable facsimiles |
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A Logo for Those Alone: No Fear! And No More Regrets |
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119 | (10) |
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Recognizing the reason for longing, the nature of regrets |
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Making peace with our failed choices, gaining insights from others |
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A field of lost dreams, Sharon's biggest mistakes, Ruthie's greatest wish, Jen's last good-bye, Diane's postponed degree, Jane's beloved Aunt Emily |
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Turning regrets into hope through acceptance, understanding, forgiveness |
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Achieving Egolessness: Getting Out of Our Own Way |
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129 | (10) |
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The freedom of unadornment, the joys of naturalness |
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Dealing with massive egos |
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The dispensable Art of Self |
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Merrilee's advice to her daughter Alison |
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The importance of runaway egotism to public persona, personal success |
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Departing the paths of most resistance, shaking the kaleidoscope of life, the value of nonreciprocal gifts in a quid pro quo world |
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In Search of Validity: Truth, Authenticity, Self |
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139 | (14) |
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Sarah's remarkable custodianship Laura's urban decompression, Cheri's simplified life, Jeri's new priorities, Margaret's absolute low and ultimate high |
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Sean's long, painful journey to himself |
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Roy's recovery from his American Dream |
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Learning spontaneity, centering, genuineness, true fulfillment, daily joy |
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The need to evaluate, validate in a world of increasing complexity |
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The Way of the Curmudgeon: Better Living Through Eccentricity |
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153 | (8) |
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Why solitude makes curmudgeons in the finest sense of the word |
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Seeing ourselves plainly so we can see others, compulsive truth-telling, not suffering fools wisely |
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America's greatest social conflict, feeling good versus being good |
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Alberto's rules for serenity, Ten Commandments into three, getting by not wanting, codependent tennis, the 10-percent rule |
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Preparing for the Trip of a Lifetime |
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161 | (22) |
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Don's lonely vigil of death by the sea, Zoe's unexpected fearlessness, Carly's sudden loss, Linda's vision of red rain |
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Dying with the Marx Brothers, casting death as an amiable bungler, staying squarely in the present by contemplating the end, keeping life precious by acknowledging its fragility, taking care of necessary business, portraying God as a geezer |
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The Long, Courageous Journey to Ourselves |
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183 | (10) |
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Learning from the superstars of solitude, why they risk and what they gain |
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Doing it alone, extending determination and courage into self-discovery and glory |
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Becoming the heroes we were meant to be |
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Robert's perilous search for God in an Australian desert |
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The man from Iowa's thoughts on living so close to death |
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What the god of solitude teaches |
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| Bibliography |
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193 | |
Other versions by this Author
