It's difficult to stand on your own. There are always those who wish to see you fall and are more than willing to ensure that you do. There are those who are offended by your solitude and thrown off by your self-sufficiency. Why, they seem to wonder, is this person able to function on their own? Are men not supposed to be interdependent? Is this solitary person not an affront to mankind? Would they not be better off if they were a part of society?
They try so hard to show you how much you need them that they do nothing but push you away. Enemies qua friends. They do not understand that oftentimes, when a person holds himself apart, he does so with good reason.
One does not awaken one morning and decide to be solitary. This choice is dictated by circumstance. To deny a man's circumstances is to deny that man. Not all men are equal; indeed, most men are not. Therefore, to force a strong man to live as if he were weak, or a weak man to live as if he were strong is overweening and fatuous.
Those who live in solitude are not necessarily strong.