Five Years In: On Solitude, Maturity, and the Long Listening

Five years ago, I received a message that changed the trajectory of my life.

It wasn’t comforting. It wasn’t flattering. It didn’t promise quick answers or a spiritual identity to wear. It was simple and sobering: connect the dots, and do not attempt to guide or heal others until you have done the work yourself. I was told it would take ten years. At the time, that felt impossibly long.

Now, five years in, I understand why.

I have come far—farther than I sometimes give myself credit for—but I am not finished. What has surprised me most is not the depth of what I’ve learned, but the shape my life has taken as a result of learning it. I find myself largely alone in my studies, with no close companions who can meet me where I am spiritually. That used to feel like a failure or a lack. I now see it as a consequence.

Most people I’ve encountered along the way fall into one of two patterns:

They either believe their system is the only system, or they expect me to heal, teach, or translate things for them. Neither allows for genuine companionship. Both subtly bypass personal responsibility.

So, as in childhood, I turned to reading. Quietly. Relentlessly. Sacred texts, modern works, esoteric material, history, psychology, and sociology. I learned to sit with questions longer than was comfortable. I learned to resist the urge to resolve everything immediately. I am still learning patience—real patience—the kind that trusts that understanding arrives only when one is ready to carry it.

One of the hardest lessons has been this: the answers I seek cannot be given to me by anyone else. Not by authors. Not by teachers. Not by pastors, gurus, or charismatic voices. Not even by artificial intelligence, however sophisticated it may appear. These tools can reflect, provoke, illuminate—but they cannot substitute for inner knowing. That realization strips away a great deal of illusion.

Along the way, I’ve passed through communities that call themselves “light-working,” “conscious,” or “awakened.” For a time, they offered resonance and shared language. Eventually, almost without exception, they collapsed into comparison, hierarchy, judgment, and subtle one-upmanship—often wrapped in soothing rhetoric about love and unity. The dissonance between the language and the behavior became impossible to ignore.

I’ve watched gifts turn into weapons. I’ve seen insight outrun maturity. I’ve observed how quickly perceived authority can distort a person’s relationship to others when inner work hasn’t kept pace. These are not my lessons to teach or correct. They are simply lessons I’ve witnessed—and learned from by choosing not to emulate.

I’m also learning to be gentler in my assessments of others. Everyone’s path is shaped by different wounds, timing, and capacities. Power arrives before wisdom more often than we’d like to admit. Still, discernment is not judgment. Naming immaturity is not cruelty. Refusing to participate in attack masquerading as truth-telling is not avoidance—it is alignment.

Throughout my life, certain experiences have never fully receded, even when my understanding of them has changed. Among these is the continued presence of what are commonly called orbs. My earliest experiences, long before I had language or context for them, involved these lights, and they have remained a quiet but consistent feature over the years. I do not present them as evidence, nor do I attempt to define their nature. I note them because they persist—across seasons of doubt, study, solitude, and maturity.

What is striking to me now is not their appearance, but their timing: as they have remained personal and understated in my own life, the phenomenon itself has entered the mainstream, appearing casually in media, advertising, and visual culture, almost as background noise. Whether this reflects changing perception, cultural acclimation, or something else entirely, I leave open. For me, their meaning lies not in explanation, but in continuity—an early thread that never fully disappeared, and one I have learned not to chase, but to acknowledge.

What I know now, five years in, is why my path is solitary.

Each soul’s evolution is custom-built. What I am meant to see, integrate, and embody cannot be compared to anyone else’s timeline. Comparison erodes ground. Spectatorship distracts. Obsession—whether with praise or conflict—fractures attention. None of that serves the long work.

I no longer need to be understood. I no longer need agreement or validation. I do not need to teach, convince, expose, or correct. My only responsibility is to continue my own evolution with integrity. How that manifests is not for anyone else to prescribe.

This solitude is not a punishment. It is a refinement.

I act without needing witnesses, without needing disciples, and without needing enemies. What remains is the work itself—and the quiet confidence that when the next layer is ready to be revealed, it will be

I move forward without urgency and without apology. What is unfolding in me does not require an audience, nor does it benefit from comparison. I will continue to read, to listen, to integrate, and to live what I come to know—allowing understanding to arrive in its proper season. This path is mine alone, and that is not a burden. It is the proof that the work is real.