A beautiful and powerful evocation of the alienation and isolation that afflicts all of us these days, borne not only of COVID but also of our absorption in the virtual reality of social media, or what you aptly refer to as our "personalized experience of news, entertainment, and reality."

Your story of your neighbor Robert reminded me painfully of my own neighbor across the street, a stocky, muscular, boyish young man with a wife and kid, who is a licensed builder, with a wide array of practical talents I can only envy, but with a deep sense of class inferiority and resentment. I've tried to reach out to him on many occasions, but he remains very distant and vaguely hostile, seldom doing more that waving back at me when I wave to him in our front yards. Yet he is occasionally very generous, bringing fresh zucchini to us, in return for which I have brought him fresh garlic or figs, and seeds of my favorite squash. but these brief moments of neighborliness never take root to grow into any kind of friendship.

And most evenings. I look out to see his huge, big-screen TV through his front window, no doubt poisoning his mind with Fox News propaganda....