Dave Cherry

Isolation

There are three forms of isolation that are fundamental in my mind. There is physical separation, mental illness, and lack of language. Their commonality is the feeling of being apart from; the inability to relate to others freely and with ease.

Physical separation is the easiest to understand. All sane people have a vital need to hear and be heard, to understand and be understood. Even animals without reason display it with their sounds and social behaviors.

Even drone insects are compelled to make sounds and touch their feelers together and it’s true of all living things that no one thrives in a vacuum. Nonhumans die prematurely and humans descend into mental dis-ease where no illness existed prior to their segregation from others. Solitary humans, the elderly without family or anyone who finds themselves alone through circumstance, will more often than not keep a pet. It only approximates communication with others of their kind, but they will convince themselves that their animal understands them; and it makes life more bearable.

 Mental illness brings with it a permanent or semi-permanent state of isolation. Untreated, even those who are aware of their situation cannot compensate for the fact that, in their reality, the world cannot be trusted to be as it seems. If they could share this reality with the person sitting next to them, they could hope to be understood. But they can’t. Not even with their psychiatrist or therapist; the professionals can only sympathize, not comprehend. In the best case, there is medicine that can provide corrective lensing for their kaleidoscope. In the worst case, they live in a near constant state of suffering and cannot experience that sense of ease and comfort that comes from two-way sharing.

Lack of language may plague some of the sane or insane equally. There is recourse, it has a remedy, but not all seek it and fewer still find it. In the simplest case a person may be inarticulate. They will probably understand far more than they are understood. Everyone experiences this in childhood and the pain and frustration of being left out provides the motivation to practice conversation and the practice of reading. In the absence of guidance, many grow into adulthood without growing into adult relations with others. And the isolation continues.

Lack of language extends to emotional life. When a man lacks the language of the heart, the woman who loves him will always feel somehow widowed, somewhat bereft. He may love her deeply, but the inability to express the length and breadth of it is a special kind of suffering, for them both. He may turn up with candy and flowers but, like the old woman and her cat, he is only convincing himself, fooling himself into thinking that he’s in a partnership.

Everyone has some area of their lives where they are isolated by not understanding or being less than understood. It brings pain, and the pain brings striving. The striving is life, whatever the handicap.