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The Lone Wolf of Discovery Island
We are never more free than when we are alone
“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.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
Alone, we’re useless
We humans hear poorly compared to other mammals. Our sense of smell is a joke. Our eyesight is impressive, but only during the day. Compared to most animals, we are clumsy, lumbering things, blindly unaware of what’s going on around us.
What we have going for us, apart from unusual endurance, is our overclocked brains and our completely unparalleled communication skills.
Cities didn’t rise by accident. We imagined them into existence, a physical expression of our need for each other. Our ancestors lived in tents, then learned to surround them with fences. From there, the walled city was a nearly inevitable conclusion. Nations followed. Societies of increasing complexity pushed away the wild world year after year, wiping out whatever we couldn’t tame.
The city and the state are as natural in their way as the spider’s web or the silkworm’s cocoon. They grow out of us as an expression of who and what we are. But our overclocked brains contain universes. Every impulse…
