Alienation is walking through the corridors of life while witnessing the world through a clear glass wall. It stands between ourselves and everyone else, preventing us from engaging with the other from our authentic selves1. It is a glass pierced with a few little holes, each hole has its own shape and this defines what kinds of messages we can send through them, the options by which we can engage with others.
And the glass is transparent because we see that there is much more than what the little holes allow us to engage with. We see everything else worth engaging with, pointing out, digging into, supporting, or helping cultivate and come out in to the world. Yet all of this is of secondary importance, fit to be waved away, because it is too risky, confusing, messy and seemingly away from the carefully signalled path that we think we are walking. Led astray from this path, we fear we will fall through the cracks of unknown untrodden territories, relinquishing a possibilities of enduring material peace, pride in our stability within a social role, and emancipation from existential concerns.
Some -probably most people at some point in their lives- have tried otherwise. They have banged at the glass, tried breaking it, jumping over it, but it hasn’t worked. So they give up in frustration, or they lose hope in how much they will be able to endure from the mortification that comes from misunderstandings and rejections produced by getting too creative with the glass. They even lose hope on whether it is even possible to live in some other way than mediated by the little holes in the glass.
Thus, we are alienated. They will only notice us and react accordingly when we send our messages through one of the little holes. In a sense we are little more than what filtrates through the holes. Our authentic selves become estranged from others (and their own authentic selves). They even become estranged from themselves, as they become skeptical of their very own existence, lacking an essentially needed external recognition from other minds.
Alienated from ourselves and others, we walk the corridors in the same manner, deftly “taking care of things” and “solving problems”, as we offer and receive what’s needed through the few little holes pierced through the glass’ surface. It’s enough to survive and find pockets of satisfaction.
Some become fascinated by the little holes; others bang at the glass, or try to shove messages through. Unfortunately, they do not match the holes’ shapes, so they see them fall to the other side all wrinkled up, battered, ugly, and suspicious-looking. Then, others somehow find other people who also distrust the glass and see them through it, not minding the little holes. These ones find a way to drill some more holes with their own special shapes in the glass between them, to feel less alone in their own glass-walled corridors.
How much of this glass is from our own personal making? How much do we contribute to its hegemony? And how much of it is to blame to the “system”, the “culture”, or “them”? It’s hard to know, probably a bit of everything. Yet, the feeling is very real and worth describing with honesty. Something tricky about alienation is that being such a slippery (just like the glass itself), bewildering phenomenon needing some cause to take the blame, it can easily develop into self-hatred, or into its counterpart of bitterness with the world.
- Authentic self is the one that remains when all masks are off, in the middle of the night when we are left with the self behind all expectations. It is the one that flourishes from our innermost proclivities, feelings, thoughts, and dreams that fill us with zest. They are all linearly sourced from our hearts, away from the social games we play in daylight. ↩︎