Being left to oneself is actually the most innate condition. Every single one of us is predetermined to die. Our being is a being-until-death. Death is a negation of who you are, but it is also that towards which you are always moving. Death individualizes. It is I myself who will die. No one can die my death for me . . . Death is my death, a moribundus sum that reveals itself to us as anxiety. Because death as such belongs to you alone, anxiety individualizes you and draws you back into yourself. [ . . . ] This withdrawal is also a condition where the bonds to all other people are torn asunder, and such tearing is a prerequisite for living in freedom, truth and actuality. [ . . . ] In solitude people come close to the essential in all things, close to the world and close to the self. It is only in solitude that you can become who you are.
Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Loneliness
