People Are Afraid To Merge

I have recently started reading Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (who wrote American Pyscho, which I loved). In the first parpage of the book one of the main characaters Clay is picked up at the airport in LA by his friend Blair and as they are driving down the road Blair says “People are afraid to merge in L.A.

Thinking about that statement, it is really what this whole book is truly all about. The way in which people are afraid to merge. The book is a satirical and darkly comical novel about the 80s and particularly this generation of rich entitled kids living in LA and one of the things which makes the book hysterical and so brilliant to me is how accurately the author nails this culture both that of the 80s and LA, he does exaggerate certain things but the sad and ridiculous thing is that his exaggeration really aren’t exaggerated by that much.  And there are all these individuals who are so self-absorbed, or narcissistic, wrapped up into their own little worlds, and yet with no real goals or aspirations, and they are all so isolated within each because they are afraid to really make a meaningful genuine connection with another person.

They are like flotsam and jetsam which sometimes brush up against each other but don’t know how to just grab on and try and pull each other out of the current. They let themselves just be swept along and are almost oblivious to the brushes they have with each other.

That statement “People are afraid to merge” just resonates within my mind, because I do have a couple of friends who are really like that in a way. In fact I have one friend in particular who in reading this book I think in some ways this book really is about him. Like me he was a product of the 80s, and he actually does live in L.A. and in someways this book is so him, though he is not as bad as the characters portrayed in the story but he is afraid to really try and make a serious meaningful connection and he does just kind of move from one person to the next and doesn’t really let anyone get that close.

Whenever I am on the road now those words will come into my mind, it is such a simple statement, but it is also just such a true summery of both the 20th and 21st century. And particularly living in this new age of technology where we have all these new ways to connect that we never had before, we can reach out to millions of people instantly from all over the world, but at the same time, we don’t really truly connect. And in some ways we can use these devices to in fact avoid really having to connect.