06/07/2026
Arthur Schopenhauer was notoriously difficult to get along with. He once spent years in a legal battle after allegedly pushing a neighbor down a flight of stairs because her conversation interrupted his thoughts. He eventually moved to Frankfurt, where he lived in near-total isolation for decades, accompanied only by his pet poodles. To Schopenhauer, social interaction was not a comfort, but a tax on the individual spirit.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
We live in an era where being alone is treated as a problem to be solved with a notification. Yet, Schopenhauer argued that the crowd is a prison of expectations. When we are with others, we are forced to perform and edit our thoughts to fit in. It is only in the silence of your own company that the performance ends and the real self begins.
If you cannot find peace in your own presence, you are not truly independent. You are a prisoner of the need for distraction.
