S(h)elfish, Without A Self

There is something more essential than oxygen. Something more primal than hunger. Solitude is that time when you converse with yourself in the language of the cosmos. The problem with the world that glorifies altruism more than anything else is that it often tends to look at any desire to keep anything to yourself as inherently selfish. Even if it is just a part of you. Even if it is only using a part of the limited time you have here on Earth to indulge in your own being. I have always wondered why the society looks at people who live alone with suspicion. So much so if you are a woman. In that case you are perceived to be frigid, lesbian or a home wrecking slut. It is curious how everything to do with a woman is interlaced with her sexuality. Different shades of it. Different extremes of it. Is there anything that perturbs this society more than a woman who is independent and happy by herself ?? I have often felt that the idea that a women neither needs a family nor pregnancy nor the constant presence of some man to keep her happy has always been suppressed violently every time it took root. The subversive mechanisms of patriarchy that thrusts dolls into the hands of young girls and read them fairytales  telling them that all they need to do is to look pretty and wait for a prince in effect reduce all chances of a woman pursuing herself. ' Witches' in medieval times and ' bitches' in our own are only echoes of this tendency to crush the spirit of freedom and independence in a woman the moment it takes shape. But is it really that wrong to desire a ' room of one's own ?'. Perhaps all the sages we know are men cause even in that ancient age women were never allowed to think for themselves, to indulge in the sheer joy of her being. Or perhaps every time she sat down to think there was a baby crying somewhere and she had to thrust her nipples into its hungry mouth or wipe its shit smeared ass. How convenient to designate such pleasures as the singular responsibility of a woman! How easy for a man to chain her without chains saving the price of the metal and using that money and time to indulge in himself! How easy to live in a system that was designed for him to be the master and her to be the stepping stone! Is it 'selfish' for a woman to want a life of her own ? Is it possible for a woman to be selfish when she is denied the right to have a self ?! I find myself sitting here looking at the skies. And though I cannot see it I can sense that glass ceiling invisibly flexing its muscles waiting to push me down the moment I fly high. If only like Katniss I could shoot an arrow into the sky and see it crumble all around me writhing in its own selfish misery. If only.