rc:
I think it is largely a question of balance. We all need time to ourselves and we also need the nurturing of other people. There is a difference between separation as part of a healthy balance and exclusion as a neurotic objective in itself. You made more progress when you were "precious" about your music ? I suspect, although I don't know, that I might be a bit lucky there, as the peculiar nature of my own musical objectives coupled with my rather laid-back mental state, might enable me to get by without being "precious". A concert artist, professional or student is, of necessity, forced, by the nature of things, to be more intense than I could possibly comprehend. In the end you are right, we have complete personal freedom to choose exactly how "precious" we are about our art; it is a choice.
At the personal level, I have learned that I must be very careful about posting thoughts, much less advice, about either musical or general philosophical matters. I started out on forums around six years ago thinking I was a rock of commonsense musical normality and wondering why other posters had such strange notions. Now I have come to realise the truth of the matter - that I am the oddball, and what is right for me is likely to be decidedly unhelpful for almost everybody else.
These ideas permeate all of Huxley's writing in one form or another. "The Doors of Perception", "Heaven and Hell" and "Island" come to mind immediately in that regard, but the thread goes back to his earliest novels. Huxley's contemplative personal mixture of Buddhism, quietism and Jungian individuation, aligned as it is with a strong and supremely distilled intellectual overtone, expressed in his wonderfully eloquent English, is almost as far out of fashion these days as it is possible to be. Many of his ideas just happen to suit me, possibly because my ideas are also "out of fashion".
Topic: AGE