Solitude here is not the romantic loneliness of the outsider who longs for inclusion. It is the structural consequence of differentiation. When the surrounding world no longer shares the higher measure, the man who continues to live by that measure will find fewer and fewer points of real contact. The majority of available human relations operate on a different plane. Genuine common ground becomes rare.
This solitude must be accepted without bitterness and without the compensatory search for substitute communities. Bitterness would mean that the man still measures his worth by the recognition of the age. The search for substitute communities often leads back into forms of belonging that recreate the same leveling under a different name. The differentiated individual treats solitude as the ordinary climate of his existence.
Within that climate certain limited relations remain possible. They are chosen with care. They are not allowed to become the center of meaning. The primary relationship is the one the man maintains with the higher principle he has recognized. All other relations are secondary and are judged by their effect on that primary one. Most will be found wanting. The finding is not a cause for complaint.
Young men often fear this solitude more than any other demand of the path. The age has trained them to equate isolation with failure. The differentiated individual learns the opposite lesson. The capacity to stand alone without collapsing into self-pity or into frantic sociability is a mark of rank. It is also the only condition under which the inner work can proceed without constant interruption by the claims of the collective.