"When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death: ourselves"
About this Quote
An uncomfortable truth is smuggled in here with the calm authority of a self-help maxim: loneliness isn’t just a circumstance, it’s a referendum on self-regard. Le Shan flips the usual framing - that being alone is a social deficit - into a moral and psychological diagnostic. The line “cannot bear” matters. It’s not about preferring company; it’s about distress, the kind of agitation that sends you reaching for a phone, a partner, a room with noise in it. She’s targeting avoidance, not introversion.
The quote’s craft is in its redefinition of “companion.” Most people treat the self as an instrument (a body to manage, a resume to build, a mind to optimize). Le Shan insists the self is a relationship, and the only one that is non-negotiable. “From birth to death” lands like a deadline and a comfort at once: everyone else is contingent, the self is the one constant witness. That stakes the argument in something almost existential without getting metaphysical.
Subtext: our culture rewards constant social proof. If you’re alone, you’re presumed unwanted, unbusy, unvalidated. Le Shan resists that market logic. She implies that the panic around solitude is learned - a symptom of treating the inner life as dead time rather than lived time. The intent isn’t to shame people who struggle with loneliness; it’s to reframe solitude as a skill and self-knowledge as durable infrastructure.
Contextually, Le Shan wrote in an era when popular psychology was translating therapy-language into household guidance. This sentence functions like a pocket-sized intervention: if being alone feels unbearable, the work isn’t hunting better company. It’s making peace with the person who’s already there.
The quote’s craft is in its redefinition of “companion.” Most people treat the self as an instrument (a body to manage, a resume to build, a mind to optimize). Le Shan insists the self is a relationship, and the only one that is non-negotiable. “From birth to death” lands like a deadline and a comfort at once: everyone else is contingent, the self is the one constant witness. That stakes the argument in something almost existential without getting metaphysical.
Subtext: our culture rewards constant social proof. If you’re alone, you’re presumed unwanted, unbusy, unvalidated. Le Shan resists that market logic. She implies that the panic around solitude is learned - a symptom of treating the inner life as dead time rather than lived time. The intent isn’t to shame people who struggle with loneliness; it’s to reframe solitude as a skill and self-knowledge as durable infrastructure.
Contextually, Le Shan wrote in an era when popular psychology was translating therapy-language into household guidance. This sentence functions like a pocket-sized intervention: if being alone feels unbearable, the work isn’t hunting better company. It’s making peace with the person who’s already there.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Love |
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