Despite the many schools of thought, one thing that seems to bring many, but certainly not all deeply intellectual philosophers together is a tendency for depression and existential angst. In fact, Nietzsche starts The Gay Science, a book whose very title focuses on mirth itself, states that “the great majority lacks an intellectual conscience – indeed, it has often seemed to me as if someone requiring such a conscience would be as lonely in the most densely populated cities as he would be in the desert”. Hardly a laughable sentiment, and a bit self-aggrandizing from some perspectives, this concept of the lonely intellectual is both undeniable and an observable phenomenon.

I recently listened to an episode of Michael Stone’s podcast Awake In the World about the life of Carl Jung. I learned about his mental breakdown, his lifelong, self-aware goose-chase for meaning, which was inextricably tied to his teeter totter back and forth into depression. Doing a bit of further reading, I was surprised to find out he was married with five children and an “emotional mistress”. And yet there is this undeniable sense of isolation about him that drove him in and out of madness. He also had a considerably sized family – what Nietzsche might describe as a “densely populated city” in terms of family life, and yet in some ways may very well have been in the desert. I’m sure I’m not the only one who can relate to Jung’s experience and Nietzsche’s words in this regard, not the only one who too has spent time in this psychological desert – it’s ironically the great number of people who can simultaneously relate to these words of loneliness that have solidified them in the philosophical canon.

I also recently (finally) finished Walden, which offers a highly contrasting experience of someone who is also undeniably intellectually inclined. Thoreau finds himself in an interpersonal “desert” – more or less isolated from actual human life in a literal sense, and finds incredible fulfillment and connection in that. The way he describes his relationship with a bird who becomes a regular visitor to him, the ridiculously intricate details of the Great Battle of Ant Hill, and even the way he describes Walden lake itself, are personified by intimacy. In contrast, Jung – a man whose profession required him to be with other people – describes his patients – actual human beings – as he may describe objects. He is totally disconnected from them, totally isolated. In a way, Nietzsche is right – an intellectual can be surrounded by people and still lonely, much like Jung. But the opposite is also true, an intellectual can be completely isolated and experience deep intimacy, much like Thoreau.

But the thing about Thoreau is he never talks about happiness either. One thing he says that I think provides the greatest summary of his book is:

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour.”

This is the definitive of the feeling which pervades throughout Walden – not of happiness, but of freedom. Happiness seems almost inconsequential to him.

However, I believe the Thoreau of Walden (for I do not know what kind of person he was at other times in his life), does not exemplify the general experience of intellectual and spiritually inclined people, I think Jung is a lot closer in that sense. I also disagree with Nietzche that the loneliness comes from being “rare” and more “noble” than others. I don’t think it would matter if every person on earth were a philosopher, that sense of isolation comes entirely from within. Even when we do find other people who think and feel deeply, that connection never fully undoes the isolation, does it? A large sense of isolation in deep thinkers comes from the realization of our own individuality, the individuality that all humans possess; that no other person has the exact same thoughts and experiences as we do, that no matter how intrinsically connected we all are, we are also intrinsically fragmented. Jung struggled against the fragmentation his whole life and it struggled back, while Thoreau embraced it openly, he leaned into it, and it gave way softly into freedom. Thoreau made isolation a friend, not an enemy.

A keystone of many philosophies, most notably facets of Buddhism, is the acceptance of suffering as a road to freedom – to being no longer controlled by that pain. It almost seems as if people with the “intellectual conscience”, as Nietzsche called it, cannot actually achieve happiness, but only freedom, known by some as peace. Perhaps the only respite from the ailments of the philosophical mind is to surrender the battle to isolation, to sign with it the treaty of freedom as did Thoreau, as have the rare few intellectual souls at peace inside their lonely minds. I end this post by wishing that peace on all of you, and on myself as well. May isolation become a friend, and may that be enough.

Photo by Elisabetta Foco on Unsplash