#148 You Choose Solitude the Way a Drowning Man Chooses Stillness

You call it a preference. Peace and quiet. No obligations. You've made a virtue of a deficit you did not choose. The neighbor you nod at for three years — you did not vote for that. The body that scrolls until its eyes burn — that is not freedom. That is a trap you have learned to call home. The cage was built before you woke up in it. Now you decorate it. Now you name it autonomy. And the strangest part: you feel relief. No one can ask anything of you. No one can fail you. You mistake your own withdrawal for power, when it is only what remains after the power to connect has been taken. You are not self-sufficient. You are self-exiled. And the exile began before you learned the word.