I think that there has become (or perhaps always was) a sort of “fashionable” isolation, where it is considered cool or trendy or something to feel down, lonely or alienated. it is considered cool because it helps to fit in with a subculture and helps those who don’t feel fully accepted in a certain environment to find a group to identify with, except the whole GROUP feel isolated so it doesn’t really make sense. but the idea of being alienated and lonely is considered edgy and an interesting aspect of someone’s character, so it’s a maintained and repeated thought.

then there is actual isolation and loneliness, affecting those who do not actually fit in- not into any crowd, not even the fashionably isolated group. isolation that doesn’t affect just a particular subculture in a particular (generally the teen/young adult) age group. I just want to distinguish between the two groups because I dislike when people (and you see it a lot on tumblr) try to say that they are so different and don’t fit in.

maybe you feel that way and I don’t want to say that’s not a valid feeling because I’m sure it is. but it is also probably an attempt to fit in, and being SOCIALLY ISOLATED and ALIENATED is seemingly a trendy thing and probably has been since J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye (or even before then, way way back or when Shakespeare first created the character of Hamlet. I don’t know for sure).

what about isolation and alienation that you can’t break, that doesn’t even help you fit into your own little subculture and make you trendy and enviable to other people, that seems to never end and follows you everywhere like an unwanted imaginary friend? you never feel like you belong, never feel wanted or worthy of anything- a job, a hobby, a friend, a relationship, an “extracurricular” activity. the persistent, deadly, unfashionable type of isolation .


3 on 13 Jul 12 via



  1. deermoon posted this
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