The outer edges of our room

We live in an incredibly transient culture. You go from the intense socialization experience of school, then move to the other side of town — or to Los Angeles — where you're dumped into this culture where it takes an incredible amount of money just to live. You're stuck finding your own way and not quite sure who's good or evil, who's using you, "Is it me or is it the alcohol?" And in the midst of all this, you're feeling totally disconnected from a lot of people. Are you clinically depressed? No! You're just lonely, and no one told you what it was or how to identify it, the shapes or colors or forms of it, so you think you're going mental. And because people tend to hang out with people their own age, everyone around you looks great, like they all just stepped out of a shampoo commercial or something, so you think, "They couldn't possibly be experiencing all this crappy shit that's inside of me." Before you even discuss it with people, you've already shut yourself down. And that's your twenties!
~ Douglas Coupland