I owe a lot to solitude. It is the state in which doubt appears, and with no one around to tell me this or that, I have to build the boat myself to seek the answer. It’s a kind of talent to know what to do with this solitude, rather than wanting to chase it away, as if it only attests to some kind of failure to be social, to be liked, because being constantly surrounded by people like a lamp attracting moths seems to be a kind of trophy that people are proud to show off. What I find truly remarkable, however, is watching someone alone, eating their sandwich by the river, and thinking they must have that space reserved in their schedule — possibly having told someone, “Sorry, I can’t today; I have an appointment,” and the appointment is with no one but themselves.
I was alone at an exhibition when I heard Nick Cave talk about how important solitude is for his process — that writing is the loneliest activity there is because only you can write what you need to write; no one else can sit in your place and put your words down (not even an artificial intelligence, at least for now. We’ll see). Nick was answering a question: “Why are you creative?” On the other side of the camera was a German filmmaker, Hermann Vaske, who repeated the same question for 30 years to countless artists from all walks of life whom he encountered along the way. He would give each of them a small piece of paper — whether it was Marina Abramović, David Bowie, Bill Murray, Marjane Satrapi, Almodóvar, people like that — and ask them to write their answer on it. The answers varied widely, both in meaning and in handwriting, like Mandela’s, with a flair worthy of someone who keeps a well-decorated bullet journal. Yet most of them pointed in the same direction: I am creative because I am alive, because that’s who I am, because I don’t know how to be any other way, because I am a son of God. That last one, from Pelé, manages, in a few words, to make arrogance and humility inseparable, which is quite typical of the very act of creating.
I’ve been reading a book that tells the story of the inventors who made the digital world we now live in possible — from Ada Lovelace, who back in 1843 already envisioned a machine that, more than solving a specific type of equation, could be programmed and reprogrammed to perform an unlimited variety of tasks, to the present moment, where they’ve invented one that fits in your pocket and makes everyone behave like a gambling addict. Just kidding — I don’t know if that’s covered in the book, I’m still on the chapter about the invention of the internet. But it took almost a century and a whole chain of people doing calculations, writing code, and soldering silicon boards for Lovelace’s imagined machine to become a reality.
The author, Walter Isaacson, tries to show that the computer and the internet were not the creation of a single brilliant mind but rather the collaborative work of many hands and heads over time. To create something new, you start with something that has already been done or thought of by others. You don’t create something big, capable of generating such an impact, completely on your own. Yes, it’s important to remember this collective aspect of creation, which is so hard to perceive because our awareness of being part of something greater is quite limited. But I can’t help but notice that the book hints that this beautiful interaction between people scattered across time and space was so fruitful precisely because of the individuals who were part of it — with their skills, limitations, quirks, vices, very specific obsessions, and their unique ways of doing things. Sure, it was collective creation, but in the end, it was that person waking up in the middle of the night to solve a calculation that led to a major breakthrough, or that person driven by paranoia, working alone to ensure no one else took credit for their creation.
The image of the artist creating alone is out of fashion, partly because it’s a ripe moment to throw stones at anything that comes from the idea of individuality — since we’ve reached the ultimate argument that it’s all capitalism’s fault — and partly because it’s true that we need each other to create, even though most of the time, those who help us move forward may not even know we exist or may have died a long time ago. But I must acknowledge that the image of the solitary artist exists for a reason, just as I used to argue that one doesn’t need to suffer to be an artist — only to contradict myself daily with the massive doses of suffering that I can’t remove from my process, perhaps because it’s an integral part of it. And the anguish I experience, which often paralyzes me, is also the instrument that indicates I’m really close to what I want to write, to what’s worth telling, because, as Lacan used to say, anguish does not lie.
It simply doesn’t work for me writing with a bunch of people around — whether they’re physically looking over my shoulder or the voices that come out of my haunted machine, laying down rules on how to tell stories, how to get published, how to build an audience, how to be successful; the voices of critics saying what is worthwhile or not; the media saying what’s worth reading, which is never what I venture to write; the expectations of readers; what other authors are doing at this exact moment; who is selling more; the sound of moths hitting the lit lamp on the other side of the room. “Oh, the artist doesn’t need to suffer” — yes, that sounds nice, but reality doesn’t give a damn about the seduction of discourse. “Oh, you don’t need to write alone” — excuse me, but yes, I do. And when I think I’m shouting to the void, I get a response that wisely reminds me that our society condemns us to isolation in order to sell companionship techniques. Then I realize that solitude is what we truly have, without needing to buy it from anyone. Behind closed doors, I am alone with my anguish. Behind closed doors, there is no one else to write these words for me.
Originally published in August 2023, here.
