In the prevailing conditions of daily life, individuals who are not prepared to enter into communication at any moment with their fellow men rate as difficult, antisocial and unfriendly, and are subject to social censure.

But this situation undergoes a volte-face whenever someone can present a socially sanctioned individual project as the reason for his self-isolation and renunciation of any form of communication. We all understand that when somebody has to carry out a project, he is under immense time pressure that leaves him no time whatsoever for anything else. It is commonly accepted that writing a book, preparing an exhibition or striving to make a scientific discovery are pastimes that permit the individual to avoid social contact, to discommunicate, if not to excommunicate himself – yet without automatically being judged to be a bad person.[…] What is nonetheless still expected of him is that, at least by the final moment of his life, he has some form of finished product to show for – namely, a work – that will retrospectively offer social justification for the life he has spent in isolation.

~ Boris Groys (via)