“I want to be alone.”

That was the famous declaration made by the early Swedish film star and glamour girl Greta Garbo (1905-1990). But it was that declaration that jinxed her search for solitude. A vast cast of has-been, over-the-hill actors and actresses struggled to stay in focus but swiftly faded out of the limelight and into obscurity. But Garbo, by her very insistence on alone-time, was hounded by media hangers-on until her death in 1990. To get a picture of Greta Garbo remained a paparazzi “holy grail” throughout her life.

We are more alone and less alone these days than ever before. Humans have always lived in communities, in tribes, in families — for protection, for food, for companionship, for love. In the twenty-first century urban living is the norm, with large populations of…