"From the 18th century onwards, it is no longer from the practice of community but from being a wanderer that the instinct of fellow-feeling is derived. Thus an essential isolation and silence and loneliness become the carriers of nature and community against the rigours, the cold abstinence, the selfish ease of ordinary society."

Raymond Williams
The Country and the City

The world without strangers, would be a sad place.

It can be liberating as one sail through a sea of unfamiliar faces with nothing to remind one of anything joyous or sad, no one to invoke haunting floods of images which seek to overwhelm one . There is nothing here but people, who like leaves being ripped away in the wind, hurtle away from me as one walk.

A leisurely walk with no one to follow, and no one trailing, is a joy on its own. Surroundings seemed alive and vibrant with the new found freedom, and the sights and sounds seemed so much richer and more palatable.

I have always found it amusing to watch people walk past me as if I have never existed. So absorbed in their own activities and lives, the rest of the world fades away. The best way to stay unnoticed by people is surprisingly, among people. No one bothers and no one cares. The only person who notices me, is me.

And during that momentary invisibility, I can be me.