Nobody has more intimate access to our deepest thoughts other than ourselves.
The corollary here is that we are all intellectually lonely. Every single one of us. The more intelligent we are, the higher is this loneliness. The obvious cure for this loneliness is to converse with people we are close to. A less obvious cure is to be found in a blank piece of paper.
Paper (physical or digital) has several advantages over people. Paper is patient – we can write for pages and pages and it never tires of faithfully recording our thoughts, unlike people who have limited temperaments. Paper is accurate – it reflects precisely whatever we have given it, unlike people who are rarely listening well. Paper is never busy – we don’t need to schedule an appointment. Paper doesn’t judge – it merely records. We are fortunate to live in an era where paper is ubiquitous. And given how individualistic the world has gotten, paper is the only outlet that millions of people have.
In several ways, paper is our most effective cure for intellectual loneliness. It is startling how many of us owe our sanity to these unassuming little whisps of wood waste.
Observations 