There’s a section in Anna Karenina which describes a landowner observing some peasants whooping with joy. The landowner is envious of their fun but knows that he can’t join in. Watching the peasants he feels “a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world.”
Naturally, this scene could apply to a lot of situations in which a person feels alienated from an ecstatic group. On my account, here is the memory that emerged while reading: a vision of high school dances in which everyone vigorously freak-danced while I, who did not know how to freak-dance, watched with aching desire from the sidelines, found excuses to go to the bathroom, and played Snake on my phone.
Via MagicMolly which is genius.
