“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self,” May Sarton once wrote. ¹

The lives of great artists, scientists, philosophers, and other thinkers reveal a common trait: the capacity for solitude. As Sarton suggests, this is not solitude via simply being alone. Anti-social miscreants, prisoners, and plenty of other disturbed people spend plenty of time alone whether they mean to or not. Solitude, on the other hand, is a very intentional and difficult state.

True solitude has never been more difficult than in our current digital era. Boredom and anxiety, the twin demons of modern life, attack most of us the moment we’re alone with our own thoughts. The glow of our phone screen or the comforting drone of the TV are natural escape routes as soon as the uneasiness sets in.

I understand the urge to seek comfort as soon as you’re uncomfortable; I tend to stare at my phone while in the dentist’s office, rather than look around the room or read a magazine or do whatever it was that people did back before smartphones existed. But by following these habits, you and I might be jeopardizing our creative lives in the long run.

For creativity – art, writing, music, or even solutions to scientific or technological problems – requires us to not only be comfortable in moments of stillness but to thrive in them.

Creativity Is an Encounter with Reality

“Creativity,” psychologist Rollo May writes, “is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world.” He goes on, “we cannot will to have insights. We cannot will creativity. But we can will to give ourselves to the encounter with intensity of dedication and commitment.” ²

How convenient would it be to find inspiration for a book we’re writing by simply typing a request into a search engine? But this is not how creative thought works; as May understands, we need to pay careful attention to our environment – to be ready and receptive as we take in the sights and sounds around us. 

Julia Cameron, the author of the celebrated book The Artist’s Way, also describes the creative process as an encounter:

“People frequently believe the creative life is grounded in fantasy. The more difficult truth is that creativity is grounded in reality, in the particular, the focused, the well observed or specifically imagined. As we lose our vagueness about our self, our values, our life situation, we become available to the moment. It is there, in the particular, that we contact the creative self. Until we experience the freedom of solitude, we cannot connect authentically. We may be enmeshed, but we are not encountered. Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression. We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows.” ³

My blunter take on this is: you can’t create anything worthwhile or think interesting thoughts if you don’t pay attention to things. And to pay attention to things, you need to be in a state of solitude. You can call it “stillness” or something more spiritual-sounding if you like; for me, it means being in an environment that invites rather than distracts. 

Until recently, the inner workings of the creative mind were something mystical and intangible even to scientists. Thanks to MRIs and other advanced technology, we now have some evidence to show just how solitude helps us be more creative and innovative.

Mind-Wandering Is a Good Thing

Our brains have different but complementary networks, not unlike the way a dynamic classroom has a variety of personalities. One of these is the Executive Control Network (ECN); this part of our brain, like a straight-A student, keeps us on top of tasks and helps us stay focused. We need it as part of our creative process.

But another part of our brain that we need just as much is the Default Mode Network (DMN), the part of our brain that daydreams, imagines, and explores thoughts about ourselves (I picture this part of the brain as the “lazy” student in the back of class, drawing brilliant doodles and staring out the window). The ECN on its own cannot come up with brilliant ideas; it needs the DMN as well. ⁴ Studies have even shown that both writers and physicists get their “ah-hah” moments during breaks while their minds wander, rather than furrowing their brows at their desks. ⁵

These stretches of concentration balanced with mind-wandering and daydreaming are only possible if we’re comfortable in an environment of solitude. It may mean being alone in a certain room in the house, or simply a quiet corner while our loved ones leave us in peace, but it’s solitude nonetheless. It’s this sort of environment that not only allows us to dream, create, and innovate but to discover ourselves.

“A person who rarely gets bored, who does not need a favorable external environment to enjoy the moment, has passed the test for having achieved a creative life.”

At first the thought of “self-discovery” might sound self-centered, but I’m convinced it’s 100% the opposite. No one wants a relationship with another person who is empty and confused; no one can understand their values and convictions without welcoming quiet moments to allow thoughts and realizations to stream in.

If we want to be a better friend, spouse, citizen, artist, and human being then we must continually retreat to solitude to know ourselves.“The creative person,” wrote psychoanalyst Anthony Storr, “is constantly seeking to discover himself, to remodel his own identity, and to find meaning in the universe through what he creates. He finds this a valuable integrating process which, like meditation or prayer, has little to do with other people, but which has its own separate validity. His most significant moments are those in which he attains some new insight, or makes some new discovery; and these moments are chiefly, if not invariably, those in which he is alone.” ⁶

And as for those twin demons, boredom and anxiety? Only by confronting them head-on in solitude do you have a real chance at defeating either one. At first, solitude can seem like a magnet for negative emotions, but as you discipline yourself and commit to creating art – whatever that looks like for you – anxiety and boredom will no longer have a foothold. Your brain will have transformed, both physically and figuratively. In the words of “flow” expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

“A person who rarely gets bored, who does not need a favorable external environment to enjoy the moment, has passed the test for having achieved a creative life.” ⁷

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1. From her Journal of a Solitude (1973).
2. May, R. (1994). The courage to create (Reprint ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.
3. Cameron, J. (2002). The artist’s way. TarcherPerigee.
4. Beaty, R. E., Benedek, M., Kaufman, S. B., & Silvia, P. J. (2015). Default and executive network coupling supports creative idea production. Scientific Reports, 5, 10964. Read here.
5. Gable, S. L., Hopper, E. A., & Schooler, J. W. (2019). When the Muses strike: Creative ideas of physicists and writers routinely occur during mind wandering. Psychological Science, 30(11), 1609–1617. Read here.
6. Storr, A. (2015). Solitude: A Return to the Self. Free Press.
7. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1st ed.). Harper Perennial Modern Classics.