Dear James: I’m 19 and Afraid of Dying Alone

Editor’s Be aware: Is something ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Each Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Inform him about your lifelong or in-the-moment issues at [email protected].Don’t wish to miss a single column? Signal as much as get “Pricey James” in your inbox.Pricey James,I’m solely 19 years previous, and I’m afraid of dying alone. Any recommendation?Pricey Reader,Initially, you aren’t “solely” 19 years previous. Nineteen is a superbly respectable age at which to be experiencing the phobia of the human situation. Particularly today. My very own encounter with dizzying finitude didn’t occur till I used to be 25—however this was pre-internet, pre–authoritarian disruption. Your era, I believe, has aged at warp velocity: By the point you’re 16, you’re all nervousness ninjas and grand masters of melancholy.Out of your query, I can’t inform if it’s the eventual snuffing-out of your subjectivity that so appalls you or the concept of getting nobody there when it occurs. In all probability some mixture of the 2, proper? We undergo this life sealed up in our cranium, squinting out via our jaundiced little eyeholes, and we’re fortunate if we really feel the consoling contact of one other—if we get shaken all evening lengthy, as AC/DC has it—earlier than our swap will get randomly flicked to the “Off” place. Dying alone: That’s what it comes all the way down to.Or does it? As a result of the older I get, and the weirder I get, the extra satisfied I change into that, removed from being a bunch of brains spinning in cosmic isolation (which was very a lot my sense of issues once I was a youthful man), we’re wildly and unstoppably linked—to 1 one other, to the world, to all the pieces. We’re not in exile; we reside right here. Our our bodies are crucibles of sensation; our minds exit to greet actuality. And different individuals, whether or not we prefer it or not, are throughout us, simply as we’re throughout them. Even you and I, proper now, are in a selected type of rarefied relationship. You might really feel alone—you could even wish to be alone—however you’re not.You’re, nevertheless, in cost. Your life, and its selections, are your individual. You’re the boss. That is the flip facet of isolation: autonomy. So declare it. Get on the market. Enjoy expertise. Do stuff you’ll be pleased with. Make the leap, and other people will present up for you, I promise. Are we floating in a common sea of Love? I believe we type of are, particularly when it doesn’t really feel prefer it. As a buddy in London as soon as stated, when he noticed me despairing: “Be robust, mate. Be pleased.”Amazed at my very own recommendation,JamesBy submitting a letter, you’re agreeing to let The Atlantic use it partly or in full, and we might edit it for size and/or readability.