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One of the best things is being alone
“It’s more, I suppose, that I’m glad to be away from the self I am when other people are around.”
Pico Iyer • Aflame: Learning from Silence
It’s good to be alone, society tells us, it’s self-care. When a friend is going through a trying time, we prescribe loneliness masquerading as empowerment. Tough breakup? Grab a copy of Eat, Pray, Love, and go on a month-long silent meditation retreat. Hard week at work? Pour yourself a glass of wine, cancel your plans, and binge on Netflix until y
... See morePolina Marinova Pompliano • Hidden Genius
This is an insight that has been repeated by artists, too. Pablo Picasso: “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” James Baldwin: “Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.” Bob Dylan: “To be creative you’ve got to be u... See more
Substack • Notes | Substack
In “Nature” — perhaps his finest essay, for being the most all-encompassing and spiritually lucid — he considers what solitude actually means, refuting the common conception of it as a kind of self-isolation from other selves behind the walls of seclusion, for even the thinking mind, the writing mind, the creating mind is a symposium of outside voi... See more
Maria Popova • Emerson on How to Trust Yourself and What Solitude Really Means
There’s nothing an introvert likes better than being alone to think things through, but this is inconceivable to other people.