I'm not sure if the claim that solitude is necessary for creative work, or just that it's one good input for creative work. But to the extent the claim is that it's necessary, I think I'm skeptical. A lot of my ideas come from reacting to other people's ideas, whether in reading or podcasts or conversation. So it's possible to get ideas without solitude. I've also definitely had the "shower thoughts" experience of course. But it's definitely not the only source of good ideas for me (insofar as any of my ideas are any good).
The claim is that it's helpful, not that it's necessary. I certainly agree that good ideas can come from low-solitude things like conversations.
But I think solitude also has lingering benefits. Like, maybe experiencing some solitude puts you in position to have productive conversations. On the other hand, maybe if you spend weeks in solitude-debt you'll be in a poor position to have productive conversations. Something like that.
What is solitude?
I have thoughts about "loneliness", a related concept:
"Solitude" naively means being physically alone; related to "solitary". If you want a more sophisticated definition, then in the above context I would say it means the state where there is some interaction type the person isn't getting. "Solitude" also carries a nonnegative and maybe-positive connotation, implying that the person didn't need the interaction, or possibly that leaving the need unsatisfied brings benefits that exceed the negatives.
It seems like you, or at least Cal Newport, are picking a subset of the above list of social interactions and declaring that to be what "solitude" refers to. I am inclined to frown upon this, and recommend picking a more specific term, like "intellectual solitude". Like, for each of them, you could imagine cases in which it's good to self-isolate at least temporarily, but I think the benefits, the reasons for the benefits, and the situations in which they're net beneficial are pretty different for e.g. romantic solitude vs "seeing human faces" solitude vs "solving my own problems" solitude vs "coming up with my own intellectual ideas and research directions" solitude vs "feeling secure and happy by myself" solitude; the cases may rhyme somewhat with each other, and that may be worth noting, but most of the discussion should be about the specific kinds of solitude.
Hm. On the one hand, I agree that there are distinct things at play here and share the instinct that it'd be appropriate to have different words for these different things. But on the other hand, I'm not sure if the different words should fall under the umbrella of solitude, like "romantic solitude" and "seeing human faces solitude".
I dunno, maybe it should. After all, it seems that in different conceptualizations of solitude, it's about being isolated from something (others' minds, others' physical presence).
Ultimately, I'm trusting Newport here. I think highly of him and know that he's read a lot of relevant literature. At the same time, I still wouldn't argue too confidently that his preferred definition is the most useful one.
OP may be interested in a framework I created that Evaluates the ROI of Information. In it, I write:
While stimulating myself with new information all day long (which I imagine many people do), it can be easy to fool myself into thinking that I’m making progress towards a goal.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. — Richard Feynman
By evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of different sources of information, I can focus on just consuming the information that helps me make forward progress in life.
So within my framework, it sounds like podcasts for you would fall under the Trivia or Mental Masturbation categories, and not Effective Information.
I also wrote a post called Mental Masturbation and the Intellectual Comfort Zone which goes more into depth on how our brains convince us to consume more information than we need.
Hm. I was actually assuming in this post that the podcasts in question were actually "Effective Information" as opposed to "Trivia" or "Mental Masturbation". The issue is that even if they are "Effective Information", you also need to have solitude in your "diet", and the benefit of additional "Effective Information" probably isn't worth the cost of less solitude.
But I'm also realizing now that much of the time podcasts aren't actually "Effective Information" and are instead something like "Trivia" or "Mental Masturbation". And I see that as a separate but also relevant problem. And I think that carbs is probably a good analogy for that too. Or maybe something like refined sugar. It's a quick hedonic hit and probably ok to have in limited doses, but you really don't want to have too much of it in your diet.
I hardly ever listen to podcasts. Part of this is because I find earbuds very uncomfortable, but the bigger part is that they don't fit into my daily routines very well. When I'm walking around or riding the train, I want to be able to hear what's going on around me. When I do chores it's usually in short segments where I don't want to have to repeatedly pause and unpause a podcast when I stop and start. When I'm not doing any of those things, I can watch videos that have visual components instead of just audio, or can read interview transcripts in much less time than listening to a podcast would take. The podcast format doesn't have any comparative advantage for me.
or can read interview transcripts in much less time than listening to a podcast would take.
This always baffles me. :) Guess I'm both a slow reader and a fast listener, but for me audio allows for easily 3x as much speed as reading.
When I'm walking around or riding the train, I want to be able to hear what's going on around me.
That makes sense about walking around, but why do you want to hear what's going on around you when you're riding the train?
Occasionally something will happen on the train that I want to hear, like the conductor announcing a delay. But not listening to podcasts on the train has more to do with not wanting to have earbuds in my ears or carry headphones around.
How different is that from them writing a book about congestion pricing and you reading it? In both scenarios you are basically consuming the outputs of this author's mind.
Well, one difference is that, if you have a question about something the book hasn't specifically addressed in your reading thus far ("How does your theory apply to hotels used by the eclipse-watching crowds in 2017?"), in the first scenario you can just ask the author, but in the second case, after reading the relevant section of the book (and perhaps checking neighboring sections, the index, and the table of contents for any other relevant sections), the only way to answer your question is to think it out yourself. And that seems to be the outcome you want.
(One could reply that you'd be thinking, at least at first, about what the author would say rather than what is true, but I'd say the fact you're reading it in the first place means you believe the author has a way of thinking that is new to you and likely valuable, and hence learning to emulate the thinking [and perhaps narrowing down what parts are worth emulating] is exactly what you should do.)
That makes sense. Although I think the larger point I was making still stands: that in reading the book you're primarily consuming someone else's thoughts, just like you would be if the author sat there on the bench lecturing you (it'd be different if it were more of a two-way conversation; I should have clarified that in the post).
I suppose "primarily" isn't true for all readers, for all books. Perhaps some readers go slowly enough where they actually spend more of their time contemplating than they do reading, but I get the sense that that is pretty rare.
And in Childhoods of exceptional people, the author finds that immersion in boredom was a universal experience:
But this immersion in boredom is also a universal in the biographies of exceptional people. A substantial fraction were completely kept apart from other children, either because their guardians decided so or because they were bedridden with various illnesses during childhood (like Descartes). A spicy hypothesis raised by this is that socializing too much with children is simply not good for your intellectual development. (I’m not going to test that hypothesis!)
None of this is an airtight argument that solitude is in fact important, but hopefully it at least is intriguing.
It is a correlation and there are good reasons to suspect alternate directions of causation. I'll quote Hollingworth:
THE TENDENCY TO BECOME ISOLATED
Yoder [7] noticed, in studying the boyhood of great men, that although play interests were keen among them, the play was often of a solitary kind. The same is true of children who "test high." The majority of children testing above 160 IQ play little with other children unless special conditions are provided, such as those found in a special class. The difficulties are too great, in the ordinary course of events, in finding playmates who are appropriate in size and congenial in mentality. This fact was noted some years ago by the present writer. Terman [8] in 1930 made a special study of the play of those in his group of children who tested above 170 IQ and found them generally more solitary in work and play than children clustering around 140 IQ.
These superior children are not unfriendly or ungregarious by nature. Typically they strive to play with others but their efforts are defeated by the difficulties of the case. These difficulties are illustrated in the efforts of the seven-year-old boy already mentioned. Other children do not share their interests, their vocabulary, or their desire to organize activities. They try to reform their contemporaries but finally give up the struggle and play alone, since older children regard them as "babies" and adults seldom play during the hours when children are awake. As a result, forms of solitary play develop, and these, becoming fixed as habits, may explain the fact that many highly intellectual adults are shy, ungregarious, and unmindful of human relationships, or are even misanthropic and uncomfortable in ordinary social intercourse.
This difficulty of the gifted child in forming friendships is largely a result of the infrequency of persons who are like-minded. The more intelligent a person is, regardless of age, the less often can he find a truly congenial companion. The average child finds playmates in abundance who can think and act on a level congenial to him because there are so many average children.
Adding to the conditions which make for isolation is the fact that gifted children are often "only" children, or they have brothers and sisters who differ widely from them in age. Thus playmates in the home are less numerous for them than for children generally.
The imaginary playmate as a solution of the problem of loneliness is fairly frequent. We know but little at present of the psychology of this invention of the unreal to fill real needs. Reasoning from the general principles of mental hygiene, one would say that the pattern of companionship represented in the imaginary playmate is less valuable for personal development than a pattern founded on reality, and that effort should be made to fill the real need with genuine persons, if possible.
Also, the deep interest in reading which typifies the gifted child may further his isolation. Irwin believes that reading should be deferred in the education of the highly intelligent. "I believe it is especially important that intellectual children get a grasp on reality through real experiences in making and doing things before they are ever introduced to the wonders that lie within books." From this point of view, the development of the physical, social, and emotional aspects of personality would have first attention in the education of a gifted child, the intellectual being fostered last of all because it comes of itself and is too likely to run away with the other three and lead to isolation.
This tendency to become isolated is one of the most important factors to be considered in guiding the development of personality in highly intelligent children, but it does not become a serious problem except at the very extreme degrees of intelligence. The majority of children between 130 and 150 IQ find fairly easy adjustment, because neighborhoods and schools are selective, so that like-minded children tend to be located in the same schools and districts. Furthermore, the gifted child, being large and strong for his age, is acceptable to playmates a year or two older. Great difficulty arises only when a young child is above 160 IQ. At the extremely high levels of 180 and 190 IQ, the problem of friendships is difficult indeed, and the younger the person, the more difficult it is. The trouble decreases with age because as persons become adult, they naturally seek and find on their own initiative groups who are like-minded, such as learned societies.
The anecdote of the 7-year-old comes in the previous section, also worth reading:
LEARNING TO "SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY"
A lesson which many gifted persons never learn as long as they live is that human beings in general are inherently very different from themselves in thought, in action, in general intention, and in interests. Many a reformer has died at the hands of a mob which he was trying to improve in the belief that other human beings can and should enjoy what he enjoys. This is one of the most painful and difficult lessons that each gifted child must learn, if personal development is to proceed successfully. It is more necessary that this be learned than that any school subject be mastered. Failure to learn how to tolerate in a reasonable fashion the foolishness of others leads to bitterness, disillusionment, and misanthropy.
This point may be illustrated by the behavior of a seven-year-old boy with an IQ of 178. He was not sent to school until the age of seven because of his advanced interest in reading. At seven, however, the compulsory attendance law took effect and the child was placed in the third grade at school. After about four weeks of attendance, he came home from school weeping bitterly. "Oh Grandmother, Grand-mother," he cried, "they don't know what's good! They just won't read!"
The fact came to light that he had taken book after book to school—all his favorites from his grandfather's library—and had tried to show the other third-grade pupils what treasures these were, but the boys and girls only resisted his efforts, made fun of him, threw the treasures on the floor, and finally pulled his hair.
Such struggles as these, if they continue without directing the child's insight, may lead to complete alienation from his contemporaries in childhood, and to misanthropy in adolescence and adulthood. Particularly deplorable are the struggles of these children against dull or otherwise unworthy adults in authority. The very gifted child or adolescent, perceiving the illogical conduct of those in charge of his affairs, may turn rebellious against all authority and fall into a condition of negative suggestibility—a most unfortunate trend of personality, since the person is then unable to take a coöperative attitude toward authority.
A person who is highly suggestible in a negative direction is as much in bondage to others around him as is the person who is positively suggestible. The social value of the person is seriously impaired in either case. The gifted are not likely to fall victims to positive suggestion but many of them develop negativism to a conspicuous degree.
The highly intelligent child will be intellectually capable of self-determination, and his greatest value to society can be realized only if he is truly self-possessed and detached from the influences of both positive and negative suggestion. The more intelligent the child, the truer this statement is. It is especially unfortunate, therefore, that so many gifted children have in authority over them persons of no special fitness for the task, who cannot gain or keep the respect of these good thinkers. Such unworthy guardians arouse, by the process of "redintegration," contempt for authority wherever it is found, and the inability to yield gracefully to command.
Thus some gifted persons, mishandled in youth, become contentious, aggressive, and stubborn to an extent which renders them difficult and disagreeable in all human relationships involving subordination. Since subordination must precede posts of command in the ordinary course of life, this is an unfortunate trend of personality. Cynicism and negativism are likely to interfere seriously with a life career. Happily, gifted children are typically endowed with a keen sense of humor, and are apparently able to mature beyond cynicism eventually in a majority of cases.
(I wonder what percentage of Less Wrongers see themselves in the above passages)
So. It seems to me that this social isolation (in the sense of failure to make friends) is not a good thing; like accidentally exploding things in chemistry experiments as a teenager, it correlates with great ability or potential, but in itself, it is probably a negative thing.
It's possible that deliberately engineering the above situation in youth is a high-risk, high-reward strategy. There are probably some geniuses for whom failure to make friends ended up causing, perhaps even motivating, them to spend all their time thinking or tinkering and thereby making great discoveries. But there are others for whom failure to make friends meant they didn't understand other people, weren't motivated to help them, and therefore didn't create startups to solve their problems, and instead retreated from the world: into games, fantasy, alcohol, drugs, or what have you. I'm skeptical that it has positive expected value, even if you had a completely ruthless, Ender's Game style attitude of "All I care about is the likelihood that they'll become a world-shaking genius; if I increase that by 1% in exchange for turning the median case from 'moderately successful professional' to 'homeless drug addict', that's worth it".
All that said, voluntarily entering temporary periods of isolation as an adult (knowing one can come back anytime) is very different from being involuntarily isolated since early childhood. The former is a perfectly fine thing to try, and quite plausibly good for the reasons described in this post. The latter I would strongly disrecommend.
That makes sense. I didn't mean to imply that such an extreme degree of isolation is a net positive. I don't think it is.
I've been thinking about a similar thing for myself https://vlad.roam.garden/Am-I-being-over-stimulated-by-audio-content and trying to scale down various uses of casual intellectual simulation audio content (did you know you can listen to things in the shower by using the waterproof earbuds 😅)
Cool! I have a feeling you'd like a lot of Cal Newport's work like Digital Minimalism and Deep Work.
I've spent a lot of time sitting by myself on a sailboat, and I do kind of align with the though that true solitude is not achieved when reading books or watching TV. And I do believe that solitude from these media may offer some benefits. But I am not sure if I think this holds true for all media.
Watching a TV show affects you're thinking much more than listening to music. To me music is just pleasant noise.
I cannot program while a TV show or podcast is playing, but I tend to program better under certain music. Same goes for studying math. I think the rythm helps me keep my thoughts in check.
As opposed to when I play a video game, read a book or watch a TV show. If I truly enjoy that sort of content it can occupy my head for days. The same may go for music I have not listened to yet, which is why I only listen to albums I know well when I need to focus.
And to that extent, what matters if a person were listening to white-noise or whale-sounds as opposed to classical music? Classical music is produced by another person and thus according to Newport it does not offer solitude. Yet I am not convinced the proposed benefits of solitude would apply for one and not the other.
Yeah, that all makes sense. I think solitude probably exists along a spectrum, where in listening to music maybe you have 8/10 solitude instead of 10/10 but in watching a TV show you only get 2/10. The relevant question is probably "to what extent are the outputs of other minds influencing your thoughts".
Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder why we're focusing on the outputs of other minds. What about other things that influence your thoughts? Like, I don't know, bumble bees flying around you? I'm afraid of bumble bees so I know I'd have trouble focusing on my own thoughts in that scenario.
That said, I'm sure that outputs of other minds are probably a large majority of what is intrusive and prevents you from focusing on your own thoughts. But it still seems to me like the thing we actually care about is being able to focus on your own thoughts, not just reducing your exposure to the outputs of other minds.
Nonfiction books are typically around 300 pages because that's what sells, and to hit 300 pages, authors often need to add a lot of fluff.
Agreed. That's why when I occasionally find a book less than 300 pages (say at only 100-200 pages), I think, "Wow, this author managed to not only streamline the book, but also convinced their publishing house that the book is better for it." This makes me want to read that streamlined book more.
What is solitude? If you are alone in a forest reading a book, miles away from any other humans, is that solitude?
No, it is not. Cal Newport's book Digital Minimalism is where I learned this.
The key to solitude is being isolated from the output of other minds. When you're alone in the forest, there aren't any people physically in your vicinity, but the author of the book you're reading is very much influencing your thoughts.
Think about it: imagine if the author was sitting next to you in the forest on a bench telling you about their thoughts on, I don't know, congestion pricing. How different is that from them writing a book about congestion pricing and you reading it? In both scenarios you are basically consuming the outputs of this author's mind.
Lesson #1: The right way to define “solitude” is as a subjective state in which you’re isolated from input from other minds.
When we think of solitude, we typically imagine physical isolation (a remote cabin or mountain top), making it a concept that we can easily push aside as romantic and impractical. But as this book makes clear, the real key to solitude is to step away from reacting to the output of other minds: be it listening to a podcast, scanning social media, reading a book, watching TV or holding an actual conversation. It’s time for your mind to be alone with your mind — regardless of what’s going on around you.
— Spend More Time Alone
Ok, so now that we understand what solitude is, let's talk about its importance.[1]
To me at least, it's not obvious that solitude is an important thing to experience. I might even go as far as saying that I find it to be counterintuitive.
Fast food? Smoking? Lack of sleep? Stress? Sure. I get why all of those things are bad for you. But solitude? Is it really that big a deal that you listen to music on your way home from work and then watch TV the rest of the night before going to sleep?
Well, here's what Cal Newport has to say:
Lesson #2: Regular doses of solitude are crucial for the effective and resilient functioning of your brain.
Spending time isolated from other minds is what allows you to process and regulate complex emotions. It’s the only time you can refine the principles on which you can build a life of character. It’s what allows you to crack hard problems, and is often necessary for creative insight. If you avoid time alone with your brain your mental life will be much more fragile and much less productive.
But this just speaks to the more emotional benefits of solitude. Solitude is also helpful for knowledge work. Here's Cal Newport again:
Exceptional things — be it ideas, writing, mathematics, or art — require hard work. This, in turn, requires boring stretches during which you ignore a mind pleading with you to seek novel stimuli — “Maybe there’s an e-mail waiting that holds some exciting news! Go check!”
Newport has a chapter in his book Deep Work that discusses this sort of stuff in more detail. There's also this blog post of his that quotes writer Neil Gaiman's advice:
“I think it’s about where ideas come from, they come from day dreaming, from drifting, that moment when you’re just sitting there…”
“The trouble with these days is that it’s really hard to get bored. I have 2.4 million people on Twitter who will entertain me at any moment…it’s really hard to get bored.”
“I’m much better at putting my phone away, going for boring walks, actually trying to find the space to get bored in. That’s what I’ve started saying to people who say ‘I want to be a writer,” I say ‘great, get bored.'”
And in Childhoods of exceptional people, the author finds that immersion in boredom was a universal experience:
But this immersion in boredom is also a universal in the biographies of exceptional people. A substantial fraction were completely kept apart from other children, either because their guardians decided so or because they were bedridden with various illnesses during childhood (like Descartes). A spicy hypothesis raised by this is that socializing too much with children is simply not good for your intellectual development. (I’m not going to test that hypothesis!)
None of this is an airtight argument that solitude is in fact important, but hopefully it at least is intriguing.
Ok, now let's talk about podcasts. I feel like podcasts are the solitude killer. Well, things like social media and Netflix are also pretty big solitude killers. I guess I'll propose that podcasts are a solitude killer. Or maybe that, for a certain type of person, they are on the shortlist of biggest solitude killers.
I find myself listening to a lot of podcasts. I'll listen to them when I'm walking my dog, commuting, cooking, cleaning, eating, doing chores, going to sleep, and sometimes even when I'm... gasp... coding! With the exception of coding, I think these are, for the most part, all great opportunities to get some of that cherished solitude time. And I don't think I'm alone in my experience of having podcasts eat in to this potential solitude time.
So, when, if ever, is it appropriate to listen to podcasts? I think my feelings here are similar to my feelings about carbs.
Personally, I eat way too many carbs. In most situations, I don't endorse myself eating more of them. One exception that comes to mind is if the food is particularly delicious; in that case I could see the hedonic benefits outweighing the costs. Another exception is perhaps if I need the energy boost for a long bike ride or something. But in the large majority of situations, I don't want to eat more carbs.
Now, I could imagine a world where this is not true. I could imagine a world where my diet is different and doesn't have a (large) surplus of carbs. In that world, I'd be a lot more open to fitting more carbs into my diet.
It's similar with podcasts and solitude. My "diet" currently has way too little solitude and boredom in it. And given this current diet, I don't really see much room for podcasts to be incorporated. If my diet was different then maybe it'd make sense for podcasts to play more of a role, but I don't see my diet being different any time soon.[2]
Similar to food diets, if the podcast is "yummy" enough, perhaps it'd be worth making an exception. Perhaps the benefits outweigh the costs.
Similar to food diets, if I "need the nutrients", it also might be worth making an exception. A good example of this, I think, is listening to podcasts instead of nonfiction books.
Nonfiction books are typically around 300 pages because that's what sells, and to hit 300 pages, authors often need to add a lot of fluff.[3] Like, to improve sales, a book that would otherwise be 120 pages will have fluff added to it until it grows to 300 pages. And for marketing stuff, authors will often go on these tours where they appear as guests on various podcasts. The interviews are usually around 60 minutes long and I find that they often serve as an 80/20 version of the book itself. So yeah, I think this is a notable exception of when it makes sense to listen to podcasts.[4]
Similar to food diets, I don't want to overgeneralize here. I recognize that there are people who truly do have room for more carbs in their diets, both literal carbs and figurative carbs. In first world countries in 2025 I get the sense that this is somewhat rare, but it's probably common enough to be worth noting.
Well, there's probably some more nuance when it comes to the question of what solitude is. It sounds like Newport has a preferred definition that a lot of other people agree with, but where there isn't universal agreement.
I'll also note that, using Newport's definition, solitude exists along a spectrum. While listening to music you might not be influenced too heavily by the output of the artists mind, so maybe you're getting like an 8/10 level of solitude there.
Maybe one day there will be something analogous to GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic to help improve our metaphorical "solitude diets".
I recall hearing this in various places, including the website for the book Rework. I can't easily find any references though. This seems to indicate that the website for Rework is no longer up.
I'm noticing that writing is probably a fantastic way to experience solitude. When you're writing, you're usually "spending time with your own mind" and are not dealing with the outputs of other minds. Well, I guess it depends how much research is needed.