There is a specific, modern anxiety that is difficult to name. It is not the dread of a specific event, but a low-grade, constant hum of disconnection. It’s the feeling of living in a world that is eerily frictionless, a world that reflects your own thoughts back at you with placid, unwavering agreement. It is the anxiety of a consensus of one; the quiet, digital loneliness of being the only person in your own universe.
There are many ways to voice your disapproval of something. For example, when people disagree with me on my journal, they don’t hesitate to tell me. When I am at a meal and I mention that I only buy music in vinyl format, someone will inevitably voice their disapproval by speaking up and saying so. My friends in school protested the first Gulf War by walking out of class — not sure what that accomplished, but it definitely got the teachers to know how their students felt about the war. The one way to air disapproval with which I cannot agree, however, is that of death and the death threat.
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