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.
Every death is a beginning of the end of the beginning of the end. Or something like that; but there is no curiosity more powerful than the clues the dead leave behind as breadcrumb secrets of who they really were during their lives, along with all the curses left behind with the truths of their real, haunting, hidden, desires.
It is entirely possible to be in the company of friends and yet to feel alone and isolated. It does not even necessarily have to relate to being somewhere else on an emotional or intellectual level. I was with a group of friends the other night and while I appreciated their company, there were a few lengthy moments when I felt that I could just disappear entirely without my absence being noted.
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