Alienation is waking up to an empty house full of people. It is to wake up not to the sweet sound of a mother's voice but the harsh shrill of an impersonal alarm clock. Eating breakfast at the end of the table, excluded from the morning conversation of the family, that is alienation. Hearing neighboring parents bid farewell to their sons and daughters while walking away unheralded is to know personal alienation.

Alienation is sitting on a wall at the bus stop watching other kids play pranks and whisper while pointing in one's direction. Alienation is getting on a bus and seeing empty seats but nowhere to sit. It is seeing the same people day after day on the bus, but not recognizing any one of them. Alienation is hearing the chatter of the bus; hearing noise but no words. To be deliberately, socially alienated means hearing one's...