So many ways to be alone
Occupying a place on my overflowing bookshelf is Jonathan Franzen's collection of essays How to be Alone. The "underlying investigation in all these essays," Franzen writes to us, is "the problem of preserving individuality and complexity in a noisy and distracting mass culture: the question of how to be alone." It's a contemplative reader, not tackling loneliness but chasing the communication forms that bind us together or set us apart. For instance, should the novelist write to connect with an audience or to make art? The question gets lofty as Franzen tosses around the names of tomes I'd never dare to attempt reading. But you can take the question down a few levels — to your work, to your love, to your interactions, whether they arrive at you unthinking or hopeful.
So, that's all why I like young writer Tanya Davis' poem and now video, "How to be Alone." Same title, different text. She goes after loneliness, but her points lie in the same world as Franzen's. The full text is here.
