All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion.

Thoreau some more and more - why did I not love this guy the first 10 times? Because I had not been alone, the bastard of myself, for 1001 nights yet.
Ben Sollee: A Change is Gonna Come (orig. Sam Cooke)