I'm not really alone.. really. I mean, I have my wife and child, a puppy, and even a cat. All in all, you'd have to say I live a pretty full life. But lately, or maybe it's just today, I feel alone.

It's a pecular sensation. I was standing outside of the MEC at NYU and I was watching everyone walking in and out, seeing someone they knew, waving, a coy smile here, a quick head-nod there as everyone scurried along to their own private little parts of the universe. Suddenly, I knew that no one there really understood what my thoughts.. my desires.. were. or that they even cared. I'm just another cog in the wheel of their existance, bouncing in and out if needed.

But what is it to be alone? Truely alone? Is it some existential realization that in the grand scheme of the universe, all you are is some skin-bag of water on an insignificant piece of rock? No, that's one's been done before.

Alone is being lost. Just lost. Your thoughts swirling about you in a maelstrom threatening to collapse upon your carefully constructed world of reality and pick it up like so many twigs in a twister, depositing them haphazardly as you struggle for the simple breath to fight, letting it all fall apart simply because you HAVE to in order to stay alive, to save yourself from this self-made onslaught.

Self made? Of course it's self made. Your carefully constructed world suddenly isn't scaleable. It may or not be somewhat modular and portable, but the basis for it's cohesiveness was built from the convenience of the moment, you forgot to concern yourself with the details of how your fragmented life fits together.

A psyche develops upon it's own free will, and suddenly, you realize that you've turned right too many times instad of turning left. You've looped back upon youself, your own thoughts betray you as they no longer make any sense. Grasping for reality, even the basic building blocks can't support you as you spiral away, confused and lost.

You know, really, you are not alone. But you can't comprehend it. You are left with only pieces of the playing-card house you built - foundations strong, but your reach became more tenous with each layer you added.

It's like a walk in the woods. Following trails, you blaze your way through, remembering each step, each rock, the scent of the pine needles carried on dull moist air. The breeze touching lightly, leaving that whisp of hair over your brow, but bringing melodies of crunching leaves and coy chirping birds mating in the distance in their secret language. Wrapped up the glory of the world, you blaze on.

Then you turn around and have no idea where you are. The trees that you've admired for so long are blocking out the true position of the sun, time has lost its meaning, and you have the sudden fear that the next step you make may be off some hereto unknown cliff masked by the sensations filling you.

You can be filled with all the joys of the world, but it ends up only being a bit part of your life. you ignored the storm for too long and now it comes upon you, unprepared for its wrath, you fall retreating, but somehow the connections to who you are suddenly are obscured. Are you who you thought you were? Can you make sense of it all, or are you even supposed to be able to make sense of it all?

There are times that the enormity that we attempt to encompass suddenly comes crashing down upon us. One moment, we were in control. Suddenly, because of someone's actions, or because you try to understand a little past your ability, or for no decernable reason at all, we loose it all. Work, side projects, self-knowing, complex calcualations you normally can do in your sleep all become uncomprehendable. Even the answer to two plus two takes up so much of your brain power, you are left exhausted and unable to form a thought.

You are lost. And alone. Because no one can pull you out of the quicksand that is sucking you down. You put on the air of being in control, being mentally competant - maybe you put out the garbage to compensate. But tomorrow's not trash day, that's Tuesday and Thursday. And the downward spiral deepens.

And you are alone.

I think I'll go empty the trash now.