Recal­i­brate our capac­i­ties through a com­bi­na­tion of phys­i­cal, occu­pa­tion­al, and cog­ni­tive solo practices.

“All of humanity’s prob­lems stem from man’s inabil­i­ty to sit qui­et­ly in a room alone.” — Blaise Pas­cal, 1654

The cult of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty has made the world a very noisy place. In our mod­ern world, there is an expec­ta­tion that all things must be done quick­ly. The next task must be fin­ished the sec­ond the last is com­plet­ed lest the wheels of cap­i­tal­ism stop turn­ing. In such a fran­tic land­scape of activ­i­ty, the indi­vid­ual becomes a prod­uct and their par­tic­u­lar skill set is cat­e­go­rized as their Unique Sell­ing Point (USP). How can any­one relax in this sce­nario? Every recre­ation­al moment not spent on self-improve­ment is a moment in which the com­peti­tors pull ever fur­ther for­ward. This process has no space for reflec­tion. Infor­ma­tion must be digest­ed and reap­plied instant­ly, whether it was under­stood ful­ly or not. We are being pulled into thought­less, uncrit­i­cal states of minds, men­tal modes that are capa­ble only of rep­e­ti­tion and regurgita­tion.

To not ques­tion our own orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ples can be dan­ger­ous. We must always remem­ber not to take our sit­u­a­tions for grant­ed. We must remem­ber to ask ques­tions in order to con­tin­ue evolv­ing as intel­lec­tu­al beings. Soli­tude is a deeply under­rat­ed state of being that is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­ducive to these activ­i­ties. To begin a con­ver­sa­tion with one­self, it is best to be phys­i­cal­ly by one­self. But it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to find a place of both phys­i­cal and men­tal soli­tude these days, bom­bard­ed as we are with infor­ma­tion. It’s hard to feel real soli­tude while scrolling through a phone. Our devices only inun­date us with a con­tin­u­al stream of exter­nal thoughts. This is more like­ly to trans­mute soli­tude into loneliness.

The indis­crim­i­nate shar­ing of our pri­vate lives has been entire­ly nor­mal­ized and, as a result, our inte­ri­or lives have been deval­ued. For heav­ier users of these shar­ing ser­vices, moments are essen­tial­ly devoid of mean­ing until they have been sub­mit­ted for pub­lic review. Los­ing our abil­i­ty to inscribe mean­ing, robs us of the abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly rely on our­selves for judg­ments of any kind. It becomes dif­fi­cult to deter­mine per­son­al truths. We have to wait until we are told what to believe. Spend­ing time away from the noise—in true soli­tude, in con­ver­sa­tion with ourselves—can often illu­mi­nate some­thing buried deep with­in our intu­ition. And, if we can res­ur­rect this infor­ma­tion, then we can use this insight to become more human, more vital, and more pre­pared to nav­i­gate the uncer­tain­ty of the world.