Where are the others? Some mornings, like today, I stumble around and wonder “Where are the others like me?” Am I so unique that there are no other beings who think and feel like me? Where is the natural linkage we think we have with other individuals? If it is real, why is it not at all obvious? Why is it not perceptible by me?
I sometimes think that I feel more of a connection with the tree in my back yard than I feel with other humans. My tree I can feel and touch, I can see its bark and limbs, I can hear the movement of its leaves. Is this supposed connection with others something I simply think, but don’t really experience. I have a memory of what that kind of experienced connection might have felt like. I also wonder if that is simply an imagined memory. Where are those others now?
Why is it that we hardly ever brush up against one another in the forest of existence as I do with my tree whenever I pass it, touch its bark, feel its solid presence. I walk in a forest of others and get only fleeting glimpses of movement, see shadows of unclear presence, hear a furtive rustle that does not repeat.
It sometimes seems that we are sitting next to one another on a giant airplane rushing through space. I may be so close to others, and yet we sit in our own unique and isolated bubbles. We are scarcely touching or looking, even while we are dimly aware someone is there. The others seem more like shadows than a manifestation of the extraordinary beings they are. So it seems to me, and I suspect it is how I seem to the others as well.
We remain aware of one another, but in an oblique and sadly distant way. We are only slightly aware of the other person sitting next to us on the imagined plane. We are so close, but never touch. And so we remain apart.
I sit and wonder “Where are the others” as I stare into my book. And they sit and stare into theirs.