Olivia Laing

It struck me as curious then, the idea of a whole town of people attending to their business, a whole town of people driving cars or walking the streets, their faces only partially betraying the magic lantern show that flares in utter privacy within the confines of each skull. Do animals think in these bright spools of colour, I sometimes wonder? Do they walk in their minds through landscapes known and unknown, both during waking hours and within the course of dreams? They do not replay conversations, or add great registers of numbers in their heads, but do they revisit past emotions or think on faces that have gone? It seems astonishing to me how alone man is, though he can touch and talk and gaze on others of his kind. But that picture theatre within his head: no one but he will ever see it played, and there is no medium on earth that can accurately catch its luminosity or speed

You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavour to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people.

You can see them, but you can‘t reach them