Franz Kafka’s MasterClass On Social Distancing

“Don’t you want to join us?” I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. “No, I don’t,” I said.¹

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still, and solitary.²

You are unfit for any human relationship.³

Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don’t find yourself.⁴

Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in yourself, thinking of yourself. Have nothing to say to anyone — never.⁵

Shut yourself off from everyone to the point of insensibility. Make an enemy of everyone, speak to no one.⁶

Have hardly anything in common with yourself and stand very quietly in a corner, content that you can breathe.⁷

The fact that no one knows where you are is your only happiness. If only you could prolong this forever!⁸

Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.⁹

In man’s struggle against the world, bet on the world.¹⁰