City and Town

I mentioned before that I am staying in someone else's (very elegant) flat for a few months and with this transformation comes a transition from a rural location to living in the city. I find it fascinating that in places where there are an abundance of people that there is concomitantly such an ability to isolate oneself from others.

I was sitting on the upstairs balcony yesterday and listening as the streams of people conversed while walking by and it struck me that they walk around little knowing or caring who else is out there and might be listening. I've noticed this in busy underground trains or buses in larger metropolitan areas all over. One sits in the car and might as well be in a glass isolation booth no matter how many people are packed in around one. In Paris, London, New York, Rio De Janeiro, Sydney, Montreal (and on and on) people chat with their comrades, but scowl darkly when unaccompanied or look off in an indifferent fashion as if they were the sole occupant of the cabin. In Tokyo it is even more extreme. Even when crammed up against six or seven others, a subway rider seeems encased in his or her own plexiglass world.



Interestingly, it is just the opposite in the rural communities I've inhabited. There it is impossible to get away from one's neighbors, their prying eyes and sharpened ears. Everyone instinctually tunes in to the business of everyone else and even people who believe they have secured the utmost privacy; locked themselves away in the most inner chamber of their domiciles to act their private acts, become the avid topic of local conversations.

I will be giving nothing away to say, I love the isolation of the city. Nowhere else do I feel less alone in my isolation, because there are so many others out there being alone with me.

(I wanted to cite the artist of the book cover above, but have been unable to locate any information. The novel is by Greg Egan, a science fiction writer of dystopic visions).