From up here, on this lonely rooftop, the world looks and sounds much different than it did on the sidewalk nine floors below.

You can still hear the buzz of the city. But the honking horns, the casual chitchat, the whir of the trolley don't echo off the buildings like they did at ground level. Up here, the sounds all blend together, forming more of a muddled hum than a cacophony of individual noises.

In a downtown urban core, you constantly feel close, sometimes too close, to your fellow humans. But if you can get outside the hubbub and look at it from a different perspective, you see how much time we really do spend in our own personal space.

And you discover that our solitude is as poignant, intriguing and at least as common as our interactions.

But everyone handles their solitude differently. Some people reach instinctively for their phones, while some hole up inside their jackets. Some walk with their heads down, not wanting to be confronted by the seeming gaggle of people around them. Others move with their heads up, as if looking for someone to make eye contact with.

And looking down from an empty rooftop you see the magnitude of our solitude.

-- SAM HODGSON

» Read Sam Hodgson's Credentialed Blog
» voiceofsandiego.org Slideshows and Video