On Einzelganger and Being Invisible.

I learned a new word last night: Einzelgänger. It’s a German word which has a few nuances but basically refers to the lone wolf type – the sort of person who can run with the pack when it suits, but is mostly drawn to a loner existence where he or she can be free to do their own thing in their own way. That would appear to suit me fairly well, so now I can confidently tell the very few people I ever speak to that I’m an einzelgänger. Won’t that be fun?

I picked it up from a YouTube channel I watch a lot which takes the word for its name. It’s presented by a man who talks about life, lifestyle choices, and general philosophy. His voice is always calm, compelling, and comfortable, and he uses it to talk simply and succinctly about ways of seeing and being. He rarely comes across as preachy, which is why I find him worth listening to and recommend his short videos of usually around 15-25 minutes.

In this week’s episode he talks about the ‘relevance’ phenomenon: the modern mania among people – mostly young people – to seek ego boosts, the attention of the masses, fame, celebrity, call it what you will; anything to avoid being invisible. And they do this, of course, mostly through social networking facilities where they hope to attract a huge audience. He then goes on to talk about the benefits of being just the opposite: the privacy value which comes from being invisible, and the freedom to go about your business relatively unnoticed and unquestioned.

Well, that suits me too, so now I can be happy wandering invisibly through my own little world unmolested. It means that nobody ever invites me to tea, but I can live with that. I do miss the odd few special people, of course, but you can’t have everything, can you? And I admit to owning a purely academic curiosity as to the precise nature of things called TikTok and WhatsApp, but I don’t lose sleep over it. My feelings regarding the scourge of celebrities have been often stated on this blog. As for the word ‘influencer’, I think it demonstrates the need to re-open Bedlam.