Ah, my friends, I don’t know whether I ought to...

“Ah, my friends, I don’t know whether I ought to tell you any more about solitude. I should gladly tempt you to take that path, I should gladly sing you a song of the icy raptures of cosmic space. But I know that few men can travel that path without injury. It is hard, my dear friends, to live without a mother; it is hard to live without home and people, without fatherland or fame, without the pleasures of life in a community. It is hard to live in the cold, and most of those who have started on the path have fallen. A man must be indifferent to the possibility of falling, if he wants to taste of solitude and to face up to his own destiny. It is easier and sweeter to walk with a people, with a multitude—even through misery. It is easier and more comforting to devote oneself to the “tasks”of the day, the tasks meted out by the collectivity. See how happy the people are in their crowded streets! Shots are being fired, their lives are in danger, yet every one of them would far rather die with the masses than walk alone in the cold outer night.”

Hermann Hesse, Zarathustra’s Return (via fuckyeahsolitude)

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