I was fortunate enough not to grow up today, where this loneliness and anger might have found an online community. They would reinforce my feelings, confirming that I was in the right and everyone else was in the wrong. If they rejected me, I would have wandered until I found another group. The power of the internet is the ability to self-select for your level of depravity.
Instead, wandering the poorly lit stacks of the only library in town, I came across a book that child me couldn't walk pass....
I quickly expanded, growing from this historical text to a wide range of topics. I quickly find there is someone there to meet me at every stage of life. When I'm lonely or angry as a teenager I find those authors and stories that speak to that, put those feelings into a context and bigger picture. This isn't a new experience, people have felt this way going back to the very beginning. So much of the value isn't just the words, it's the sense of a relationship between me and the author. When you encounter this in fiction or in historical text, you come to understand as overwhelming as it feels in that second it is part of being a human being. This person experienced it and lived, you will too.
You also get to experience emotions that you may never experience....
Instead of finding a community that reinforced how alone and sad I was in that moment, I found evidence it didn't matter. People had survived far worse and ultimately turned out to be fine.... Humanity is capable of adaptation and the promise is, so are you.
Matthew Duggan, "AI is Already Killing Books" (mattduggan.com; November 24, 2023). Retrieved from https://matduggan.com/ai-is-gonna-kill-books/.