To follow up the theme of safeguarding solitude and the image of a pearl is this confirming statement of the Sufi master Hafiz:
What do ordinary people know of the value of the precious pearl?
Hafiz, give the unique essence only to the elect.
This election is not from God but from the self. Instead, one elects to pursue a certain path, never stopping to acknowledge that one has done so or broadcast this news to others, any more than the traveler should divert from a path to enter a city and seek out its entertainments. Less so to flaunt the pearl to strangers or recount how one found it.
Election is to take the solitary path that circumvents the city. Or, to push the image still further, to enter the city only in deepest night in order to pass through it in darkness and obscurity, when no one is watching.