I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Friday Flash, I share an epiphany or aha moment from the past week.
This past week, I discovered Polish psychologist and psychiatrist Kazimierz Dabrowski’s work on positive disintegration, his theory that to fully develop your personality you must go through a period of questioning societal norms. As you do so, you will find that your life disintegrates. You discover that what you thought was important is not, and you have to instead grow your own value framework and choose commitments that align.
While many psychologists would say that you need to develop good adjustment to your life circumstances, Dabrowski says no, maladjustment is a good thing. He argued that being well-adjusted to a sick or mediocre or even evil society is a sign of stunted growth. Positive maladjustment is, instead, a deliberate rejection of social norms, peer pressure, and your own lower-level habits in favor of a higher set of internal values you cultivate yourself.
Our culture promotes the idea that you must have a rich and regular social life to be well adjusted and psychologically healthy. It’s such a truism that most people would never question it. But for me, beyond my small set of very close relationships (with my three adult children, my two sisters, my parents who are thankfully healthy in their eighties, a couple important friends) I don’t need or seek any more social contact.
Last year I joined two art groups, made some friends, and exhibited my art in shows. But eventually I found it unfulfilling and burdensome to continue. Before I retired, I developed close relationships at my various jobs. I thought I would miss that when I left the corporate workforce. I don’t though, not at all.
In his book Solitude: A Return to the Self, psychiatrist Anthony Storr argues that modern psychology is biased towards the interpersonal. It assumes that if you aren’t socially active you are (negatively) maladjusted. He suggested that for highly intelligent or creative people, solitude is the primary environment for self-actualization. This aligns with Dabrowskian positive disintegration, wherein a cultural emphasis on socializing may become a barrier to the highest level of functioning rather than a necessary foundation.
A Nietzschean, Kierkegaardian lifestyle
Two of my favorite philosophers were famous for their hermithood.
After breaking his engagement to Regine Olsen in 1841, Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard retired into himself. He said there was “something spectral” about him that made him unfit for the realness of marriage. He spent the rest of his short life as a celibate bachelor, walking the streets of Copenhagen and then retreating to his study. He believed his solitude was akin to a religious vocation. He identified the single individual (den Enkelte) as the highest category one could reach, arguing that truth is found only when one stands alone before God, without the reinforcement of the crowd.
Frierich Nietzsche’s later life was similarly lived out in solitude. He left the academic life and what he called the noise of society to find high-altitude solitude of Sils Maria, Switzerland. As the hermit of Sils Maria, he would take six-hour walks alone. He was plagued by migraines and stomach issues. He famously said, “I go into solitude so as not to drink out of everybody’s cistern.” He viewed solitude as a philosophical instrument. By separating himself he could better critique the premises of a culture he found mediocre.
I’m no Kierkegaard or Nietzsche but knowing that they found solitude key to their way of life helps me feel better about my own choices.
What is maladjustment anyway?
Maladjustment is “the inability to react successfully or satisfactorily to the demands of one’s environment… [It] often implies an individual’s failure to meet social or cultural expectations.”
I guess one could say that Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were both maladjusted. Kierkegaard didn’t choose the culturally “correct” path of getting married, having children, and perhaps pursuing a prestigious professorship. Nietzsche left academics too and as well did not marry.
The choice to live alone is one that most cultures don’t promote. That’s because a culture benefits from people pairing up and having children together. But that’s a topic for another time.
Today, I’m celebrating my positive maladjustment.