The Quiet Between Us

I was standing in the grocery store line this morning, surrounded by people who were all staring intently at their phones. It felt like we were all in the same room, yet miles apart, each of us tucked away in a private, digital bubble. I looked at the person in front of me and wondered what they were thinking about, or if they were even really there at all. We spend so much of our lives moving through crowds, brushing shoulders with strangers, and yet we rarely truly see one another. We are like ships passing in the night, lit from within but unable to signal the other. It makes me wonder what we lose when we stop looking up. Is it possible to be completely surrounded by the world and still feel like you are the only one awake? What does it take for us to finally drop our guards and just exist in the same space, together?

Liton Chowdhury has captured this feeling of being together yet apart in his photograph titled Lost in the Crowd. It beautifully mirrors that sense of finding a small, private world amidst the noise of everyone else. Does this image make you feel lonely, or does it feel like a secret shared?