Not darkness, for that implies an understanding of light. Not silence, for that suggests a familiarity with sound. Not loneliness, for that requires knowledge of others. But still, faintly, so tenuous that if it were any less it wouldn’t exist at all: awareness.
Anomie Theory describes the effects of early industrialism and the resulting social division of labor with rising suicide rate. Accordingly, in times of social upheaval, “collective consciousness” is weakened and previous norms, moral convictions, and controls dwindle.
Willow Glen PlazaOdd August (6-day week!) <- click to get current month
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire–why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express & admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals–and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?