The Single Man

Paradoxically, the single man spends more time looking over his shoulder than the coupled. Looking at the past, at what has passed, and what passes. The single struggles to hold on to things, to stop and enjoy anything, to really be anywhere - he has no anchor. He drifts onwards, forwards, sideways - a spectator of the passing of time and experience. The predicament can be likened to the inability of one eye to take the measure of distance or appreciate dimensions, and the way we become tired if too long is spent looking one-eyed through a camera lens. What he may feel he has is opportunity, the opportunity to choose to grasp something. Being adrift, he can stray into another vessels wake, clunk together with another hulk in harbour due to his singular mass. His lack of perspective allows him to telescope in close to a target subject at the blink of an inclination. And he can imagine the target to be as large or small, near or far, or one dimensional as he wishes. He can draw and arrange his world, what is in the fore, what is in the rear. But the ties are weak, and at any point the currents may carry him off or leave him behind, unanchored as he lies.