Loneliness as never before

“Man in the 19th Century began to feel a loneliness such as he’d never felt before, as least as I read history. He’s been feeling it for a century now and he’s getting more and more lonely, more and more atomized. He’s being blown to smithereens. He’s in a world where he has no bearings. He’s on his own as he’s never been before, because in the past he had tradition and convention. There’s nothing on the horizon today: no great leaders, no Moses who might lead us out of the wilderness. Now it is up to man to save himself. He can’t look to anyone for help. That’s the desperate and the hopeful quality about this modern age. Man has to recognize himself as something more than a human being or he’ll perish.”

—Henry Miller, My Life and Times, 1972

---

• September 18, 2004 at 21:55
  in Words spoken, echoes heard

There is 1 other entry posted on this day.