Why the Minds of Geniuses Need Solitude

More and more emphasis is being placed on the idea that growing psychologically is about surrounding yourself with people learn to relate at all times and with all types of people, let the word flow through all types of conversations.

Where creativity is required, work is increasingly teamwork, and learning is collaborative. The jobs and professions related to loneliness are associated with the mechanical, the monotonous.

However, this idea is misleading. Loneliness is not simply an almost inevitable circumstance in a society in which the traditional family model has lost strength. Above all, Solitude is a source of inspiration and personal growth

Being alone is not a crime

In many countries, introverted people, who are those who need to spend more time in environments that are not overloaded and with few people, are highly valued.

In Western countries, however, this type of personality is viewed with the condescension of someone addressing someone who does not know what they are missing. The normal thing, it seems, is to be surrounded by people practically at all hours. People who, in addition, They interact with us and show their camaraderie or admiration Going unnoticed or isolating yourself in an informal meeting does not count. The superficial charm of psychopaths and narcissists seems to be rewarded.

The few times that people talk about the good thing about being alone, it is almost always to compare it to the possibility of “being in bad company.” But…does the positive side of loneliness really only appear if we compare it to the worst situation that can occur in its absence? The answer is no; The lack of company also has psychological aspects that are good by themselves and that, in fact, have allowed many geniuses to make history.

Company limitations

There is another way of seeing things. One in which being in company does not have to expand our horizons of creativity and spontaneity or can even produce the opposite effect.

Interacting with someone requires adapt to a communication code that limits us We try to make ourselves understood, and to do so we dedicate part of our attention to controlling the way in which others react. Likewise, one of our main objectives will be to communicate ideas and sensations successfully. In some way, we carry the responsibility for the other to reach certain conclusions. Even when we lie, we need to resort to common references so that we are understood.

In the same way, when sharing space with someone we dedicate a good part of our mental processes to making a good impression, even unintentionally. In short, relating to others involves making efforts to translate our ideas into something translatable, even if it is at the cost of subtracting authenticity and nuances.

Conversing is leading our thoughts along paths that, in part, have already been thought of by many other people long ago in order to create effective communication codes thanks to which we make ourselves understood in a matter of seconds. Common phrases, metaphors, recurring comparisons… all of this acts as a psychological funnel and biases both us and our interlocutors

The creative potential of introspection

Solitude, on the other hand, offers almost total freedom. There we are alone, with our own metaphors and ways of understanding life, and we can continue building on those foundations in a much purer way than we would if we were in the company of someone.

We do not have to be accountable to anyone, since we do not have to communicate with anyone; It is enough for us to understand ourselves.

In solitude, great ideas appear that we do not have to reject out of embarrassment or because we do not understand them at first. If they fit well into our mental schemes, they are already valid. And, if not, many times too.

Maybe that’s why great geniuses like Leonardo DaVinci. Charles Darwin or Friedrich Nietzsche appreciated solitude so much. In the end, the greatest intellectual advances are always a refusal to follow the path of thought that others have set.

Creating creative revolutions is just that, breaking molds. Not to please others, but because the ideas we have had are so powerful that, if they give us the choice between social conventions and them, we decide on the latter. But that can only be done if we respect our thoughts enough to give them a few moments alone, so that they can develop without social distractions.

Creating great connections

The mind works like a machine for associating ideas; Creativity comes when it occurs to us to unite several that seem to have less in common with each other. It is clear that for these connections to occur we need to relate to others; among other things, because otherwise we would not have a language with which to articulate abstract ideas.

But, to complete the circle, we also need solitude. Firstly, to rest, and secondly, to cultivate a way of seeing life that is unique and truly ours through introspection.