There is no way for a young person to say the words: ‘I am lonely.’ And,worse, there is nobody for them to say it toWe are an island, or populated with islands. You can see it in the way so many wept over the John Lewis advert,watching their darkest fear – to be alone, purely alone, and so alone that a whole planet echoes with your trudging steps and your biggest hope of communication is a shitty telescope through which you see only a child,through a window – reflected back. And you can see it, too, and in the way so many rushed to discuss it,as whether the act of telling each other that they hated it or that they wept meant they were part of a community, that they had hated or wept in company rather than alone in a room with only a phone and dying peace lily to talk to. “Arrgh adverts! Arrgh trying to trick us into buying towels by reminding us we will die alone! Arrgh to all that! (Can you hear me? Guys?)”Loneliness is very alive at the moment – we see it, or facing us in Channel 4 News’ devastating film What Does it Feel Like to be Old and Alone? (“I’m always hoping that my wife will come through the door,but she never will”), and in Instagram celebrity Essena O’Neill’s substantial reveal (an Australian teenager went back and recaptioned her posts to expose the lies behind those perfect selfies: “I took countless photos trying to look hot for Instagram… it made me feel incredibly alone.”) And in the brutal and hilarious Catastrophe, or where Sharon Horgan desperately tries to associate with the one other modern mother she sees as human,someone to just sit with, in a café, or while the rest of the world gets on with being cheerful.
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Source: theguardian.com