"Immersing yourself in a virtual world is just as superficial and weak as immersing yourself in the world of putting on airs." - Anon.

Let me tell you a story. It's a short story about a girl in her mid-twenties. This girl was living a fairly quiet student life in the city she grew up in. Like many other young people like her, she studied subjects that would guarantee you'd never get a job, but are interesting to read in contrast to the boredom of bureaucracy and entertainment in Scandinavian societies. You can do that when the government pays the dues and the teachers don't care about your future.

This girl, we don't have to give her a name just yet, spent her time either playing computer games at home, reading up on university essays, or working in a clothing shop. Pretty cute, friendly. She even had a dog. Not a party freak. But there was something wrong. Something that made her life feel empty. If you met her in that shop where she worked or in her home, with her dog, you'd never be able to tell just by the look in her eyes. The emptiness was deep inside and only really known to her.

This emptiness came from a lack of context and vocation. In the Social Democratic society she was living in, she fulfilled the norms of what would be expected of young people like her. She was studying, she had a part-time job, some friends, and an animal. And still there was something clearly lacking. Her life was a line stretched between quiet boredom and occasional bursts of curiosity. She had no personal goals to strive for, no skills to harvest, no social community of which she was a part. She was a member of society, yet so strangely alienated.

So she let her life go on as usual, slowly feeling accustomed and at peace with the kind of monotonous lifestyle she'd managed to build with student loans, computer and dog food. Every day she fed the dog, every day she played at the computer, every day she wrote on her essays, and every day she spent a few hours at the shop, smiling at customers. But who did ever smile back at her? Who would dare to challenge her as an individual? Who would giver her love and let her give love back? She'd never dare to ask these questions--what if there were no answers?

I once met this girl. Her name was Indifference, and we parted soon after we'd met. I believe, and hope, she's never been more happy in her life that what she is today.