Submitted by ziq in TOTALDESERTION (edited )

Remember

It doesn't need to be like this

You get to be completely you

Uninfluenced by other people's needs and neurosis

You don't have to spend half your energy making them feel good

And then you're left with brain power to dedicate to creative outlets

Things you'd never have time for if you had to maintain friendships

Maintaining relationships with others and paying attention to their needs detracts from your ability to take care of you

You've been conditioned by society to think you're a failure if you don't have all the things they say say you ought to have

Things they say you need to be whole

But that's so limiting

There's so much value in solitude

Wildly creative people often embrace solitude

Needing to tune out to tune in

It's why so many big thinkers have needed to be hermits

The only way they can reach that level of understanding is to cut off all those external voices

All the people trying to influence them, drowning out their own thoughts

Cut them off to hear the self

And eventually hear the whole universe through the mind's eye

Most people are incredibly draining to be around because they don't know how to be alone

They constantly feed off other people's attention

They need to be constantly distracted by them

Entertained by them

And they can never grow really

Because they never really tune into their own voice

It's so important in this short life to know how to be you

I made peace with it a long time ago

Looking up at the dark night sky

Understanding the value of solitude

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Comments

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kin wrote

It's better to befriend a tree or a rock than a human these days... And if you ask the average urban dweller they are terrified of being alone or in silence, I never understood that I feel restored and enjoy my time alone..

I won't say that I don't enjoy having friends or loved ones, I really need human contact buy it's not on daily basis

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Tequila_Wolf wrote

I love being alone, and there is obvious value in solitude for me (and I suspect for most people), but friends make my life better and make me better at many things that are valuable to me. And most people are draining (or otherwise undesirable) to be around, but I don't need or want those people to be my friends.

The idea that knowing how to be yourself is bound up in solitude seems like circular thinking, because it assumes in the first place that our true self is not someone who is in relation with others.
Why would being ourselves not include being selves who love to build projects and worlds and lives with others? (and how would we really find that out on our own?) Why would people not be able to learn how to be who they are through interactions with others?
Not everybody is the same as you, insofar as what you are saying is true for you also, but that's implicitly what you think in the more forward moves you make here.

If you are right that many (some?) big thinkers need to be hermits because friendship holds them back, which I don't think is correct in the sense you are arguing (and I suspect that despite them being hermits many of them would consider themselves to have friends), that means nothing for the rest of the world, who are different kinds of people. And anyway at least as many wildly creative people embrace people and friendship, even if it's just one person, because even though people in general are shit or just incompatible with many single individuals, there are enough people out there that it's possible to find extraordinary people whose is worth being friends with in many cases.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Not everybody is the same as you

it's a letter to one specific person, it's not meant to be a letter to everyone

it's from a telegram chat, a response to someone who wanted to know how to be ok with having no friends after constantly being hurt by former friends ghosting them

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fortmis wrote

Ugh honestly so so so so relevant and real in my life right now. The wheels are still turning... Trying to figure it out... What kind of friendship is the right friendship, how much friendship is enough friendship. I'm just such a damn social person

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kano wrote

I like having friends, my friends aren't people who really drain me, its other people who do. And I think that my friends also contribute to who I am as a person, I don't think always being alone would necessarily make me more myself.

Definitely agree and think that its worthwhile to be picky about whom I form close relationships with, but overall I think having friends is cool, and for me in my past it was also definitely necessary, and still is now.

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fortmis wrote

I am critical of a great thinker's ability to speak on the human condition when they live completely isolated. I am critical of a musician who does not listen to music, an actor who never watches other actors, a sculptor who never stops to consider the impossible curves of a water-worn stone.

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ziq OP wrote

depends on if you believe the human condition is dependent on society i.e. the collective, or if it can be better analyzed by exploring the individual, i.e. the self

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fortmis wrote

Ya i was reflecting on this exact thing after posting. I don't know what i believe. I don't think it's dependent on society but i also think it is limited when focused solely on the individual. Something in between maybe... Something like friends....

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lentils wrote

personally i like having friends as long as i don't become too attached to and dependent on them but i also enjoy just being alone sometimes.

but if you find being friend-free works for you i support that.

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scarlet wrote

It's nice as a support letter, but I feel really weird about the "other people's neurosis part." Does this have something to do with Freud by any chance?

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