The title to my post is a lyric from a song in the musical Rent. It popped into my mind because the performer really accents the word in the song, but now I see that it is a perfect title for this post.
I think we live in an isolating age where it is easy to seemingly connect with people from the comforts of our own home and behind the safety of a computer screen. It is so easy to isolate ourselves from the world without feeling isolated. However, what kind of connections come from these means?
Now, I am going to put on my "old person" hat and talk about "back in the day" when in actuality "back in the day" was not that long ago. It started with the walkman, the disc man and now the I-pod. I often took public transportation to school and would see many people immediately put on their headphones upon entering the bus or L. They immediately shut themselves off from the rest of the people in the car. Yes, there are people reading or doing homework on the subway, but they are not cut off from everyone else. You might think, music relaxes me, entertains me, I don't need to connect with anyone else on the train and I agree with that. It is just an observation and what I beleive headphones have come to symbolize.
Today, I see people walking in a store, down the hallway at school, almost anywhere with their ear buds hanging around their neck. It is as if they need the comfort of knowing they can shut out of the world at a moment's notice.
Maybe I am reading too much into this.
Going back to "Two Bodies," we are just a wave in a vast ocean. Just a stone in a desert. Just a spark flickering in the night for a brief second. It is hard enough to make a connection, let alone a meaningful connection amid a world so big. Maybe we should allow ourselves to be more open to the opportunity. True, the waves might crash and destroy or the spark could start a fire, but something good could come out of it as well.
Did anyone read this far? Did I start to ramble? Possibly. I get going sometimes.
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