"This sense of knowing yourself alone and nakedly, so to speak, may be one part of why solitude inspires creativity — because creating something yourself, of your own, uniquely, requires a kind of personal freedom, a lack of inhibition, a capacity not to glance over your shoulder at the opinions of others.

"Nonetheless, it is oddly the case that life with others seems to work more smoothly when individuals do know what they want, even if they are prepared to compromise it for the greater collective enjoyment. Nothing is more destructive of warm relations than the person who endlessly 'doesn't mind'. They do not seem to be a full individual if they have nothing of their own to 'bring to the table', so to speak. This suggests that even those who know that they are best and most fully themselves in relationships (of whatever kind) need a capacity to be alone, and probably at least some occasions to use that ability. If you know who you are and know that you are relating to others because you want to, rather than because you are trapped (unfree), in desperate need and greed, because you fear you will not exist without someone to affirm that fact, then you are free. Some solitude can in fact create better relationships, because they will be freer ones.

"Here is Alice Koller again, summing up these points:

" 'Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.' "