it’s tremendously (nay: impossible, I’d argue) for someone swaddled in community, family, or partnership to empathize with folks stricken by default solitude. You might even go so far as to say many contemporary problems (and I don’t think this is much of a stretch! in fact, it’s so obvious I’m embarrassed to write it out:), stem from aloneness, from solitude, from the “broken mind” that comes from feeling like you’ll free-fall (emotionally, financially, whatever) to the core of the earth at any moment. It makes risk taking (the core mechanism of art and wealth) intensely difficult, and can make even the dumbest little thing (filling boxes with books, for example), feel Herculean, impose full-body paralysis.