You can't shut out the world

Everything that happens ... shows beyond mistake that you can't shut out the world; that you are in it, to be of it; that you get into a false position the moment you try to sever yourself from it; and that you must mingle with it, and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the bargain.

Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins,

September 6, 1858

Amen. Amen.