Analysis of Pico Lyer's short story "Nowhere Man".

"Nowhere Man" by Pico Lyer hits the target in exposing the emptiness that looms our generation. The meaninglessness threatens to swallow us all like a black hole. Lyer includes himself as being part of this new generation and gives his generation the term "transit loungers." Likewise, I identify myself as a transit lounger. In Lyer's essay, his term transit lounger refers literally to himself and others like him; they have the so-called privilege of living in an "interconnected and multicultural" world. I define a transit lounger as person who has lost herself or himself by becoming professional spectator of their fate, life and world. But whether they like to admit it or not, he or she clings onto the innate human need to belong and establish a connection with humanity.

Human cheek cells

Human cheek cells

English: Black hole jet diagram. http://www.nasa.g...

Such a person is under the spell of the old belief that "variety is key," and with it will come freedom. The danger of seeking this freedom is the inability of our roots to stretch out to cover the whole wide world; like all roots, it is rather fragile and limited to a small portion of land. Expanding this root to cover the vast world that we, transit loungers, travel could quite possibly put it to self-destruction mode and fall off. This root is essential for humans; we feed off of it our passions and humanly bonds. There are other dangers as well, with our world becoming so "interconnected" and traveling made to be so effortless, it is easy for transit loungers become arrogant, believing that we have we have exposed the smallness of the world and brought it to our mercy. There is a spring of excitement and wonderment, and transit loungers have overfilled it; the overflowing residue eats away at our souls. Such individuals typically inhabit...