Here’s the other problem with Facebook and Twitter and even The New York Times. When you expose yourself to those things, especially in the constant way that people do now—older people as well as younger people—you are continuously bombarding yourself with a stream of other people’s thoughts. You are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom. In other people’s reality: for others, not for yourself. You are creating a cacophony in which it is impossible to hear your own voice, whether it’s yourself you’re thinking about or anything else.

— William Deresiewicz, in a lecture titled “Solitude and Leadership” that was delivered to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009. Truly moving, but also heavily guilt-inducing, I implore you to devote 30 minutes to reading it in full.