where the wind blows...

"No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost , drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated ( a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories..."

-Neil Gaiman, American Gods

We are insulated and isolated from the lives of our friends and lovers. Able to ignore a shut door, we stride past the tears of our comrades because we must be stronger. Emotion is a sign of weakness, and to share tragedy is the worst communism of all- a direct assault on the values of our homeland, as defined by the capitalist hog.
Our schedules don't match up, and so we kiss goodbye in the morning while we think about where our next cup of coffee will come from and how the paperwork was filed and whether or not we'll be late to work and if we'll have sex tonight and how will we be honored for our efficient use of time...
It is the western ideal, a paragon of strength and virtue, to ignore the plight of your fellow man.

Let those who are insulated continue to be islands of western strength.
I want to be a sailboat.