Somewhere in the last decade we lost one of the greatest virtues. Solitude. We still find an occasional pocket of it by serendipity, but mostly it has left the quotidian. It has become something we either savour, or something that is forced upon us, but it is rarely a state we find ourselves in during our daily routines. Nonetheless, we are lonelier than we have perhaps ever been. While there is always "something" out there; a familiar strangers through a screen, there is no moment for a thought of ones own. One is never alone and always lonely.
There is nothing more disgusting than a man who always needs to more or less parasitically attach himself to someone else because dignity and the capacity to be alone are practically the same thing
~ Landshark
Can you be alone? Have you tried? Do we even know what that still means? What it means to have nothing to reach to, except perhaps a book. I'm not sure I know either. In my usual life, even if I attempt to take my day "slowly" I'll spend some 2h on my phone before making it out of the house, only to read maybe 50 pages in some cafe while checking my phone 4 times, half hoping that someone notices whatever esoteric nonsense it is I am reading here.
Boredom in that sense of the fidgetting anxiety you get when deprived of your usual vices, is a modern thing. We were once perfectly content with our sensory experience of the world being entertainment enough. This is not advocating in favour of some Cro Magnon Idyll; more that specifically the onslaught of the last centuries has made a rarity of the deep calmness we can feel that is so conducive to the creation of ideas.1
None of this is a praise of inaction. I see that too much online. The NEETmaxxed unemployed chud posting about "espresso pussy amalfi coast alain delon porsche aperol"-vitalism. But instead find it in yourself to be alone. You mustn't be like Parzival and wander for decades with your resolve unbroken, but find something you genuinely enjoy doing and attempt to convert the restlessness of boredom into an itch for action. For the appreciation of this world and the creation of new ones.
I am in the deepest sense a progressive. I yearn for improvement. I cherish those illustrious few that have gotten us to where we are today, and I believe their like exists still. Thse that have the deeper dignity in their life. Those who have found it in themselves to be alone at times. They make excellent friends; as do all who live life like there are real stakes at play. And one way or another, it is their kin that will write the future, just like they always have. Look for the person that can still stand straight.