I was laying in bed this morning, looking at my fiance, thinking of a lyric from Modest Mouse. “No one really knows the ones they love. If you knew everything they thought, I bet you’d wish that they’d just shut up.” I thought about it on the way to work, driving (or idling, rather) along the 101.

I don’t think you can help but think about loneliness in Los Angeles. More people than you can imagine, all winding their way through the veins of the city. I’m working on a film out in Agoura Hills, about 45 miles from downtown LA. There’s a spot on the highway where the city surrenders to the Malibu Mountains. And every time I reach it, I imagine Los Angeles 100 years ago. Is this what the rest of it looked like? Amber fields and whatnot? What was it like to be alive then? Surely we were happier. Despite more physical labor(which, after sitting at this computer for thirty minutes, I can’t imagine being a bad thing), more disease and hardships. But were they at least more connected? To each other, to the world surrounding them?

Naturally, I assume so. I picture neighbors knowing one another. The tipping of hats. Before the flood of people made villages into towns, towns into cities. You see, when I’m down, not only do I possess the gift of nostalgia for times I miss from my life, but times I never even lived. That I have no right to miss. I don’t think about how great other people have it elsewhere, I think about how great people had it back in 1874. You know, we were still licking our wounds from the war, not quite ready to launch into the Industrial Revolution. Not necessarily trying to get ahead. Just trying to get by.

Sounds pretty swell, huh? Sitting out on the porch, hearing the train whistle from the next town over. Maybe drinking Country Time lemonade (afterall, what are our memories without the imprint of mass marketing?). It all seems, well… perfect.

At the same time, I’ve been reading Sherwood Anderson’s classic “Winesburg, Ohio”. It’s a fictional town similar to the one he grew up in at the turn of the century. Each chapter follows a different member of the town of Winesburg, and each person is more hopeless than the one before. There’s the town pastor, being driven mad by his private obsession with the woman he spies on from the chapel window. An old crop picker who wants so badly to tell his young friend to flee his ensuing married life. The daughter of a farmer who is driven mad from the desire to live up to her father’s expectations.

And yet, despite all of the despair, it’s an amazingly gratifying book. One of the best I’ve ever read. And the reason is quite clear to me: with each page, I’m reminded of our connection. Loneliness and disappointment. These are universal; they somehow weave their way through all stretches of time and place.

As of now, do you feel isolated? Do you think the internet has changed that? For the better… or for the worse?

In the latest Rolling Stone, there’s an interview with author Kurt Vonnegut where he laments the decline of civilization. Could he be right? Or is he just getting old?

We reached 300 million people here in the U.S. this summer. We’re supposed to hit 400 million by 2040. More people, less land… more isolation? If a man has thirteen kids, can he love them as fully as he would three?

These are the questions left playing Pong in my brain as the day draws to a close. In a moment, I will slide into bed next to my future wife. Comforted, if even momentarily, by the idea that if we all must fall asleep alone, at least I get to do so in her company.

-Sam Jaeger

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