We stand alone together…
It’s funny I have contemplated this line of words for a while now. Certainly since I saw ‘Band of Brothers’ for the first time, but I think reading them in Dr. Ambrose’s book some years before that already started the cycle of my thoughts.
Within the setting of the Military in General and WWII or Easy Co. specifically these words summarize a basic rule and truth.
And I wonder how fitting it is to our modern times.
We’re realising ourselves in a varying number of groups, communities, clubs of interests and associations. At first it satisfies our basic human need for closeness, for sharing a passion, a simple interest or uniting under whatever reason… Then there are the friendships and relations, heartily contacts that come out of that bond. Some are for a lifetime, some are just for a moment. It all serves a purpose. And in my line of work researching the Human mind it is a common description of the ‘social being’ that articulates itself in that way.
And then there came the Internet and a communication that bonds people wherever they are, no matter how many miles there lie between them.But as we grow closer one to the other, as deep connections are forged, as we start to know each others real lives, meet, drink together, share our inner feelings and views, there still remains this distant feeling of removedness. Like college friends that have gone off to be spread all over the place.
“We stand alone together…”
For me these words are not just the translation of an Indian name for a mountain, the challenge phrase of an Infantry Regiment or a military truth.
They express one main aspect of our ‘oh so modern’ communication and contacts.
With all the love and the understanding I get from either my family, my friends or my online contacts, I cannot hide from the fact that I am alone in this city and in this life. I remember when my final exams approached some years ago that I went to bed the night before the first written exam. I was nervous of course, but not as nervous as I had anticipated. And I recall thinking “everybody is standing beside me tomorrow… they’re all thinking of you…”.
I feel the same way today. I know that there are so many nice thoughts sent my way, so many loving words in my mind. Nevertheless… ‘we stand alone together…’
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