Cavendish’s Best Known Social Distancer: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Over at the Cavendish Historical Society, Margo Caulfield points out that Solzhenitsyn sought the quiet of a small Vermont town in order to deepen and advance his art.
“However, even with our mountains and fresh air, as everything has been shutting down, people are expressing how they feel the world is closing in on them. I find myself turning to one of my favorite Solzhenitsyn quotes for comfort, “We are creatures born with inner freedom of will, freedom of choice-the most part of freedom is a gift to us at birth. External, or social freedom is very desirable for the sake of undistorted growth, but it is no more than a condition, a medium, and to regard it as the object of our existence is nonsense. We can firmly assert our freedom even in external conditions of unfreedom.” —From Under the Rubble”