What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.Excerpt from The Wasteland, T.S. Elliot
I’ve been thinking about what people fear the most - isolation, desolation, death. I’ve seen it in books, in the movies, in TV. When they say “You are not alone,” I get it. When they say “Everyone is alone,” I get it, too. I think neither statement is wrong. The trick could be not to think about it. Or at least not to think about it too much and instead try to find the balance where you can exist with knowing that you’ll go through the full spectrum, in cycles even, as you continue on.
I remember when I was just starting to work, I can never eat at the cafeteria alone. Finding a group to go with is more of a survival measure than anything else. Of course that changed through time. I didn’t have a cellular phone then to keep tabs on my loved ones. Now, people even install cell phone amplifiers in their vehicles for fear of missing an important call. But this isn’t about technology. This is about fighting the fear of being cut off. Rilke once said that because solitude is heavy and difficult to bear, sometimes people “would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along, the most unworthy.” I guess that’s true. I am yet to meet someone who can keep me company in silence and be right about it.
