Which part, the being alone? It's actually very reminiscent of Thoreau, Alan Watts, and Milarepa to me. Thoreau as he lived alone; Alan Watts in reference to the spontaneity of it; and Milarepa as he said the absolute best thing you can do is live alone in a cave on a mountain where it always snows. Next best is to wander nomadically, unattached, and next to live on the outskirts in a hermitage hut (rough paraphrase).
Idealism and realism or practicality aren't opposites, they're actually rather meaningless at a certain point.
Paul as Buddhist disagrees but I as a Buddhist agree. Pointedly, Buddhist logic allows for two seemingly contradicting points to exist truly. (It both is and is not; it neither is nor is not.) Throughout Buddhism eeeverywhere and all kinds of other philosophical or spiritual writings it's understood: Once you get to a certain level, you're no longer trying, you're no longer seeking. It's one of the important building blocks of a sane view of life. . .
Love and compassion are natural, and I believe every master (Buddhist or any) that I would respect at all would say the same. These are the natural qualities; after all, isn't it our basic nature? To say anything else is more natural is sacrilege (to say the opposite qualities are more natural). What is more natural than love? Love and kindness heal, love and kindness create, they are everything good and natural. They are absolutely natural, and they're the best that is in us. They're everything.
Likewise - the enlightening Dharma is natural, the enlightened Buddha is natural, and the student is natural. I was listening to a Dharma talk of Thay, and I remember him saying - the Dharma is lovely in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end. In other words, in the very beginning of practice, the experience is beautiful. In the middle it is, and the end is as well.
Pain occurs, but it is natural to learn to avoid it. Vivekananda said, the goal of life is happiness; the bright understand this quickly, the unintelligent, a little more slowly.
For the record, Buddhist teaching doesn't say that love and compassion are lacking; if you immerse yourself in Buddhism you will see absolutely countless cases where it's indicated the Buddha's teaching taught that every moment is complete, whole, lacking nothing, and that we are, as ourselves, complete, whole, and lacking nothing. The very core of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment was that love and goodness
do arise in completion in humans, and they arise as soon as we awaken to our Buddha nature - our real nature, which is. . . if I may say so without avoiding circular logic or over-repetition, natural.
The path is difficult for some, it is true, but its essence is not complicated: "Do good, do not do evil, and cultivate the mind."
It is an infinite process, yes, and one of the keys involved is to return to step one; return to the here, and the now - observe. One of the most powerful methods is to become absorbed in the question, "Who am I?" When a thought occurs, "To whom is it occurring?"
There are certain predicates to practice.. master Bassui, as well as Ramana Maharshi (not Buddhist...
) taught questioning as the way, taught this koan, "Who am I?"