Solitude

“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born,” said Nikola Tesla in 1934. The inventor spawned his “earthly miracles” not in a busy lab, but in the countless hours spent tinkering away at electrical systems and radio technology on his own. “Originality thrives in seclusion,” he said, “free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind.” Philosopher Blaise Pascal made a…

I was an untroublesome child who looked after herself. For a short time I went to the village kindergarten, but I didn’t feel too good there. My strongest memory of the place is of being made to have a lie-down in the middle of the day and of sitting in a tree when I didn’t want to play with the other children. But I did have a lot of freedom, which these days would be unimaginable. I used to spend a lot of time at the…