Home. Alone.

Looking at the World Press Photo winners a couple days back I came across this picture of a woman taking a self-portrait for her social network page. I love how this photo captures modern urban life. Not just with its main subject but also with the peripheral objects that tell a story of spacial lack and of survival essentials. The bag of chips on the bookshelf I notice with a pang of recognition. I have a half-eaten (oh alright, almost finished) bar of chocolate on my rack. The deodorant, the face creams, the speaker, even the sticky notes on the cupboard (more often used for random doodles rather than for to-do lists and reminders) are all indicators of a lifestyle that this woman here shares with millions of people around the world. My sense of fellow-feeling with her though is not without a certain nostalgia about a time when cultural diversity was a real thing. When people ate things or wore clothes depending on where they came from. When if you were visiting Malyalis you got Thoran and rice for lunch. When Parisians were distinguishable from Muscovites. As the deracinated throngs replace the melting pot generations in this globalised world, one wonders how capitalism managed to be such an efficient villain. If only class could be taken down so well.

The girl in the photo is doing what has become an everyday activity for millions across the world. So many of us have done it; clicked pictures of ourselves for Facebook. Spent hours online looking at updates from friends we haven't seen or talked to in a long time. Or ever, at all. Tina Fey recently called The Social Network a film about how Facebook ruined our ability to interact one on one. I don't think that film is about that but that description of Facebook sounds pretty much accurate. One no longer needs to have one's friends around them. Conversely we pass up moments of connection with people around us in the physical world. Individuals have never been more alone in human history. It reminds me of Norwegian poet Lars Saabye Christensen's Mayday.

Holding cellphones
So many people
I've never seen before
In each corner
Gate
Bus stop
Cafeteria
Under trees
In the park
Looks like
Cuddling teddy-bears
To their cheeks
They're thinking
That it understands
All they say
They must be
Speaking to somebody
Sometimes I think
Can they be talking to each other
It can't be
Such a beautiful dream
Just can't be