Isolation and Madness

What we can learn from Nietzsche’s decent into madness

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The human race has done some extraordinary things. We’ve explored every crevice of every landmass, have dived into the deep depths of the ocean, and explored the seemingly unending realms of space. We’ve uncovered philosophy, then alchemy, then chemistry, then physics, and now quantum physics. We’ve dissected the brain, labeled it, given each section their individual roles. Yet, the human mind, what our own consciousness consists of, remains a mystery. The fear of self-understanding hinders us. The danger within descending into the depths of ourselves could very well result in madness. Unlike the navigation of the earth, or the mapping of electrons around its nucleus, the mind has no maps or guidelines. And, worst of all, one must go alone.

“Whoever looks into himself as into an enormous world space and carries galaxies within him, he knows how irregular all galaxies are: they lead right into the chaos and labyrinth of existence.” - Nietzsche, The Gay Science

For one reason or another, I’ve been incredibly fascinated by Nietzsche’s descent into madness. Unlike most he was willing to descend into the depths of his mind, and did so willingly. Why, I wonder, did his inner explorations lead to insanity?

Throughout his life Nietzsche had suffered from one form of mental suffering to another. At the age of 14 he experienced extreme episodes of headache and vomiting, and a pain in what he claimed was his brain. Then at the age of 26 he contracted dysentery and diphtheria. In 1875, at the age of 31, he wrote to his friend Erwin Rohde stating that his physical pain had taken a toll on his sanity. Six years later, his suffering still remained. “Pain is vanquishing my life and my will” he wrote in a letter.

These episodes of extreme suffering both reminded him of his mortality, and so crafted him into a prolific writer, as well as isolated him. His works, though he considered them “gifts to mankind”, were rejected and overlooked by the masses. A year before his descent into madness he wrote: “It hurts me frightfully that in these fifteen years not one single person has ‘discovered’ me, has needed me, has loved me.” Any attempt at friendships, love, and intimacy almost always failed: “How rarely a friendly voice reaches me! I’m now alone, absurdly alone… And for years not a word of comfort, not a drop of feeling, not a breath of love.”

In short, he suffered. And though his physical pains were at times unbearable, it was his isolation that pushed him into insanity. “The fear of finding oneself alone – that is what they suffer from – and so they don’t find themselves at all.” - Andre Gide, The Immortalist.

Humans are social by nature and seemingly unsuited to absolute aloneness. Nietzsche theorized that our fear of solitude is in reality a fear of oneself. In our everyday routines, distracted by work and the presence of others, our socialized personalities come to the foreground, and push our thoughts and emotions outside the realm of our conscious. Only when alone, and without distractions, do these suppressed, darker aspects of ourselves arise.

There is a danger in spending too much time alone, as there always will be a moment wherein our demons will weigh us down and lead us further within. “It is what one takes into solitude that grows there, the beast within included.” - Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Those who spend the majority of their time in the presence of others may be saved from solitude, but will always suppress the version of themselves they could have become.

In this respect I would say Carl Jung, perhaps learning from the “mistakes” made by Nietzsche, took a more nuanced approach to his isolation. Unlike Jung, Nietzsche did not have stability or success, nor friends or a wife, or any reputation to fall back on. As Jung said himself:  “Nietzsche had lost the ground under his feet because he possessed nothing more than the inner world of his thoughts which incidentally possessed him more than he it. He was uprooted and hovered above the earth, and therefore he succumbed to exaggeration and irreality.” 

It seems then, as Nietzsche said himself, that it is of the utmost importance to have security within oneself and, paradoxically, the feeling of support of those around them, when delving into isolation and exploring our inner world. Jung was not only respected, but also loved by his friends and family. He had a stable footing on which to set his feet. Nietzsche, on the other hand, spent his entire life dealing with one ailment after the other, and very little friends to share his predicament. He, as opposed to Jung, had no sense of stability.

The feeling of being alone in the world can cause many to question the meaning of life in general. Confronting this question is the most important of all. As Jung stated: “Meaning makes a great many things endurable – perhaps everything.” It is far easier to reject the question of life’s meaning, and go about life adopting the kind of personality offered to us by cultural patterns. In turn, the distinction between the individual “I” disappears and becomes molded with the collective world. “The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him.” - Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom.

It seems, then, if we want to become an individual, we are required to embrace our self-awareness, delve deep into our unconscious, and, for some time, embrace isolation. However, in order to do so, we must take from Nietzsche what we can. We must first find stability, a why to life by that will make anything endurable. Or as, ironically, Nietzsche said: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” It is only then that we can find true freedom.

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This week’s distractions:

1. Listened to so many Lex Fridman podcasts over the past few weeks that I’ve caught myself thinking in his voice at least a few times a day. This was one of my favorites:

   Sean Kelly: “Existentialism, Nihilism, and the Search for Meaning”

2. World Science Festival: “Time Is of the Essence… or Is It?”

3. Andrew Huberman: “Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction”

4. These articles about Instagram/TikTok’s impact on mental health and eating disorders:

• How Instagram led to two teens' eating disorders

• Instagram Triggered My Eating Disorder

• ‘It spreads like a disease’: how pro-eating-disorder videos reach teens on TikTok

5. Leonora Carrington: “How Doth the Little Crocodile”