I wanted something more than just privacy in the geographical sense. I wanted to sink roots into some replenishing philosophy.
Took my daily walk at 4pm today in 89-degree frost . . . I paused to listen to the silence . . . The day was dying, the night being born ­­-- but with great peace. Here were imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence -- a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps.
It was enough to catch the rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that that rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance -- that, therefore, there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental off-shoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of man's despair and found it groundless. The universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; man was as rightfully a part of that cosmos as were the day and night.
I did take away something that I had not fully possessed before: appreciation of the sheer beauty and miracle of being alive, and a humble set of values. Civilization has not altered my ideas. I live more simply now, and with more peace.
      - Richard E. Byrd, Alone. This, from Byrd’s diary, was written during 1933-1934 when Byrd spent five months alone operating a meteorological station in Antarctica.

. . .

I’ve not been to Antarctica
But have spent weeks alone in Canada’s subarctic
Living in a tent, the land of the midnight sun
The cycles of the land, of the cosmos
The wind, the rain, the harmony,
The strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres
The feeling of oneness with the universe
The feeling that transcends reason
The feeling that is its own all-encompassing reason.