The Art of Solitude

Just before his death, Blaise Pascal was hashing out private thoughts that would later be released as a collection by the name of Pensées. 

The book is mostly a mathematician's case for choosing a life of faith and belief, but more unusual is his clear ruminations on what it means to be human. Pascal writes that we fear silence, we dread boredom and instead opt for aimless distraction.. The issue at the root, essentially, is that we never learn the art of solitude.