"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."

So today I had to read an excerpt of Russia: A History. I bet you can guess how much I enjoyed that. Once I woke from my coma-like stupor, I processed the fact that most of the...one page...on literature and arts in pre-WWI Russia discussed how they were a departure from the civic-minded stuff of tradition and a move towards modernism. My assignment was to write a "reaction paper" on this excerpt (for my Lit and Film class...go figure) and find parallels and contrasts between the two. The two what, I have no idea. So I started skimming a Wikipedia article on modernist literature, which cites "disillusionment" as one of its major thematic characteristic. This made me think of two things.

1) When Sam and I studied for the APUSH exam with the SparkNotes study cards, we decided that if there was a question on the exam that was about the early 20th century and we didn't know the answer, when in doubt, the answer was "disillusionment," because the word came up on every other card. It was ridiculous.

2) I feel like people like to use the word "disillusioned" with the word "alienated." If you're disillusioned, the general consensus probably is that you're alienated, too. So disillusionment and alienation were big modernist themes. Discontentedness was so common, it might as well have been trendy. Everyone felt society was fragmented and disconnected and everyone was trying to make sense of the whirlwind world of progress and industry and change. And so on and so forth.

Really, though, it's not uncommon for people to feel alienated from others and disillusioned with the world and socially isolated from everyone else and so on and so forth. But why is that? It seems like that shouldn't be a problem at all.

"Everyone is less mysterious than they think they are."
- Claire, Elizabethtown

At the core, everyone is human. Everyone shares the same basic foundation. People tend to go around thinking they're unlike everyone else, they don't fit in, etc. (guilty...) - even when they do. Everyone thinks that no one "gets" them, that no one understands or can understand. Really, we have no excuse for that. We all share the deep, innate connection of existing together as humans - it's so deeply buried, that we forget it exists. What is it about us that keeps us so guarded, that makes us completely disregard the common ties we have with everyone else? And what is it that makes us so afraid when we find "kindred spirits," people with whom we connect? Maybe that's just it: fear.

Uh, yeah, those last two questions don't really have anything to do with each other; I'm not really sure how I made that leap. But fear is another subject completely, and now, I have work to do.