Identity, Interdependence and Contradictions

I am a Rock

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

(Simon & Garfunkel)

Dear Digory, Being a recluse, I'm sure you know, is a form of self-preservation which has its own advantages and disadvantages. Yet, no man/woman can live in isolation forever - he/she has to engage in the discomfort, pain and joy of living. To do that, I need to unlearn certain orthodoxies or at least temper the more radical aspects of my sets of beliefs and values - fierce independence, extreme self-reliance, over-individualism (?) and Idealism. The circumstance in the last few years have forced me to to humble myself in ways that I never had to before, yet I'm held back by unpleasant episodes in the past where I had made myself vulnerable; I shouldn't let that cloud my interactions with you, it really is not fair. I should shed my armor/'scales', or the 'undragoning', according to C.S. Lewis, because "the secret of change lives in submission, not self-effort ... throw yourself down safely, i.e. let go and trust yourself to Another (145)". It is no longer bearable to be alienated and unreasonable to avoid what may be fated, or abdicate from destined duty. I have to outgrow this self-defeating condition of 'split mind', 'contradictory identities' and 'flight from reality'. Will u take my hand, Polly