“Early cultures heavily emphasized the importance of communal bonding and obligation, urging the sacrifice of the self to the greater good. But while such bonding is necessary to keep civilizations alive, we’ve always prized those who rejected this: Outcasts like Socrates, Lao Tzu, and Jesus. And while the latter would become a fisher of men, his time alone in the desert would also in time inspire his followers: By the fifth century, the deserts of Syria were pockmarked with hermits, each looking for a little desolate wasteland of his (and occasionally her) own.”