Music: Deep Fat, Chartreuse
“But totalitarian domination as a form of government is new in that it is not content with this isolation and destroys private life as well. It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man.”
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
If only I were a painter! I would paint the feeling of loneliness. The settled wrinkles, the eyes that have turned inwards, the beer slowly becoming flat. The man just sits there at the edge of the bar. If you go to bars often enough you will sometimes see this scene. An old man, having suffered at hands of time, sitting alone. Perhaps alone in thought, but seemingly abandoned by even his own thoughts.
It is a hell of a sight. The sorrow, seeping from his posture into the bar. The weariness of his wrinkly features. Loneliness set in deep eyes. It has a certain beauty. Something like a crackling old LP, or an abandoned industrial building. I can’t help but to look at this man. I wish I was a painter. I wish I could paint loneliness itself. I wish I could paint this man.
We will see more and more of this. People often talk about loneliness of the elderly, it is disheartening but it is only part of a much bigger problem. In my own generation one in five people say they don’t have a single close friend. Among Americans sure, but also before the pandemic. I truly doubt we have it that much better here & now. ‘I don’t think I know many people without friends’ I think to myself, but that is kind of the point.
Maybe people see me in the same lonesome light; just a guy alone, writing in a bar. I might be a painting called the future of loneliness.
At least the old man is doing something. At least he is out. At least he is not spending his nights scrolling through pictures and clicking through videos. Home alone, distantly connected to the whole world. The old man still belongs a little to the world. He is here with us in some way, not completely separated by wall and screen. I don’t know what is to come of my generation. Suicide among young people has been rising since well before the pandemic. Some say it is the attention economy that never gives anyone real attention, others say it is all the talk about the end of the world. I don’t know, but I doubt it is caused by sitting in the bar.
I wonder what the man is thinking. Memories of happier times? Lost friends? Exhilarating nights with former lovers? A math problem? Nothing in particular? I cannot tell. His face is blank yet ripe with indiscernible emotion. His chest falls on a deep sigh.
It is a sigh I can get behind. Over the last decades the infrastructure of social interaction has been eroded. Many public libraries closed, public transport has been cut back. We paid for our GDP with our social capital. When populist politicians talk about reclaiming the country, when they talk about the forgotten ones; perhaps they are talking about a lost community. I don’t think they will fix it. They seem less interested in friends and more in followers. I suppose friends have become followers over the years.
I am as guilty as anybody. I don’t stay in touch as I ought to do, I don’t volunteer at the homeless-shelter, I haven’t become part of a D&D group. The truth is: I am happy to watch a semi-interesting video about a distant conflict, instead of calling an old friend. I should be a better friend for my own sake.
The old man finishes his drink. “You want one on me” I ask him. He looks up. The look in is eyes doesn’t change. “No thanks, got to go home”. He puts his coat on and as he pays he looks at me. “Thank you” he says politely. We wish each other a good night. A heavy coat over old shoulders walks out. Drifting into the cold. I wonder what home he walks to. Maybe he will have friends over later, perhaps he left to make dinner for his date tonight. I don’t think so, but I don’t know.
Is this all just me being lonely? A little perhaps. Though, less lonely than when I was last night when I was just playing FIFA at home. I belonged a little bit to the world tonight. Just another painting that belongs in the museum of loneliness.