the silence

***

"The important thing is to get deep down into it...So far inside that I can't see anyone else and no one can see me.  Way down there in the darkness, doing battle.  All alone.  But not sad alone," said Ozawa.  "There's all different kinds of loneliness.  There's the tragic loneliness that tears at your nerves with pain.  And then there's the loneliness that isn't like that at all - though in order to reach that point, you've got to pare your body down.  If you make the effort, you get back what you put in."

(Murakami, "The Elephant Vanishes" 294-5)

***