The Hardest of Days
"In the end, we'll all become stories." - Margeret Atwood Illustration by Müge Olçum There is no conclusive research as to how long the average human can go without social contact before they go insane. There are reports of individuals living in almost complete isolation for over a year, but these individuals didn’t survive with their sanity intact. As little as ten hours alone can leave most people with a physical and psychological craving that’s not too dissimilar to the same amount of time without food. Then you have to take into account the individual’s preexisting mental state and the presence of other stressors. Then, of course, there are the fundamental differences between everyday interactions such as purchasing goods and meaningful human interaction. How many visits to the supermarket equate to an hour talking with someone who is present with you? Eventually, after some time, I turned to myself for some sort of validation that I was here and that the social v