One Person
There is a kind of loneliness like no other: eating alone in public. This is the worldâs saddest scenario, sadder than poverty and homelessness. Animals always take great pride in sharing food or fighting for food. âHe who eats alone is dead (but not he who drinks a lone. Why is that?)â This person needs to âproveâ his existence. Thus he tries to do things out of thin air: running, writing, creating, conquering. This personâs final stop would be a narrow single bed. From that moment on, his back is tightly attached to the board of the bed, his most firm support, where his world unfolds itself: his bedroom, the apartment, the apartment building, streets, neighborhoods, cities, countries, the world. It is only when he is alone that the patterns of the world unveil itself.
All of a sudden, we find out that in an overly complicated world, the most effective glue for forming a group is oneâs privacyâit is only when the individual is at his/her weakest moment that a group of people shows its humanity. We can even make this assertion that the most stable way to form and retain a group is with the goals of quitting drugs, conquering fear, or sharing struggles (as in support groups). Here, the most introverted subject has the most extroverted attention, and now the group comes to the public and confronts he who eats alone. The most astonishing thing is that his eyes are full of sympathy, exactly the same expression your eyes are filled looking at him. This gaze continues and constantly becomes each otherâs mirror reflection, dynamic, twinkling, endless. Meanwhile, this movement which numbs us becomes a static tĂȘte-Ă -tĂȘte, a commonsensical sign.
