金曜の夜、仕事を終えて1Kのアパートに帰ると、玄関を開けたが早いか、室内の静けさが私を出迎える。今日一日、声を出して話したのは、昼に立ち寄ったコンビニの店員と、宅配便の配達員に「ありがとうございます」と返した、その二度きりだった。冷蔵庫の音だけがやけに大きく響く部屋で、私は自分が一人であることを改めて自覚する。
Friday night, I finish work and return to my 1K apartment. The moment I open the door, the silence inside greets me. The only times I spoke aloud all day were the two brief "thank yous" I gave to the convenience store clerk at lunch and to the delivery driver in the afternoon. In a room where only the refrigerator hums conspicuously loud, I am reminded once again that I am alone.
スマートフォンを取り出し、家族のLINEグループを開いてみる。三日前の母の「今日は雨ね」というメッセージで時間が止まっていて、未読も既読も、新しい通知の一つすら浮かんでいない。返事をしようにも、何を書けばよいのか思いつかない。沈黙そのものが日常になってしまったのだと、いまさらながらに気づく。
I pull out my smartphone and open the family LINE group. Time has stopped at my mother's message from three days ago, "It's raining today," with no unread, no read receipts, not even a single new notification floating in. Even if I wanted to reply, I cannot think of what to write. Belatedly, I realize that the silence itself has become the everyday.
インターネットで世界中と繋がれる時代にあって、孤独を訴える人がこれほど増えているのは、なんとも皮肉な現象だ。SNSをのぞけば友人の充実した週末が次々と流れてくるが、画面越しの賑わいは、こちらの静けさを慰めるどころか、かえって際立たせる。「いいね」の数がいかに増えようと、心の隙間が埋まるべくもない。
In an age when the internet lets us connect with the whole world, the fact that so many people complain of loneliness is an ironic phenomenon indeed. Open any social media app and a stream of friends' fulfilling weekends scrolls past, yet the liveliness on the other side of the screen, far from soothing the quiet on this side, only throws it into sharper relief. No matter how many "likes" pile up, there is no way they can fill the gap in one's heart.
孤独は若者には無縁のものという思い込みこそ、問題の発見を遅らせるきらいがある。総務省の調査によれば、二十代の単身世帯はこの三十年で大きく増え、相談相手が「いない」と答える割合も無視できない水準に達している。助けを求めたくとも、誰に頼ればよいのか分からないまま、画面を見つめて夜を明かす若者は少なくない。
The very assumption that loneliness has nothing to do with young people tends to delay our recognition of the problem. According to surveys by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, single-person households among people in their twenties have grown significantly over the past thirty years, and the proportion who answer that they have "no one" to confide in has reached a level that cannot be ignored. Even when they want to ask for help, more than a few young people simply stare at their screens through the night, not knowing whom to turn to.
高齢者の孤独はさらに目に見えにくい。同じ階に住む八十代の女性が、いつのまにか町内会の回覧板を回さなくなっていたことに、私は半年以上気づかずにいた。後で聞けば、足を悪くしてから外出が減り、家族とも疎遠になっていたという。隣人の顔すら知らないご時世にあっては、誰の異変も気づかれぬまま静かに進行していく。
The loneliness of the elderly is even harder to see. It took me more than half a year to notice that the woman in her eighties on the same floor had stopped passing along the neighborhood association newsletter. When I asked later, I learned that since hurting her leg she had gone out less and grown estranged even from her own family. In an era when one does not even know one's neighbor's face, any change in another person's life can quietly progress unnoticed.
「無縁社会」という言葉が広まって久しいが、その実態は年々深刻さを増している。引き取り手のない遺骨が自治体に保管される件数は増加の一途をたどり、孤独死は決して特別な出来事ではなくなった。死してなお無縁であるという現実は、想像するだに重い。
The phrase "society without ties" has been around for a long while, but the reality grows more severe year by year. The number of unclaimed remains kept by local governments climbs ever upward, and lonely deaths are no longer a special event. The reality that one can remain without ties even in death is heavy even just to imagine.
職場の人間関係もまた、かつてのような濃密さを失いつつある。リモートワークの普及により、同僚と顔を合わせる機会は激減した。便利さもさることながら、雑談の中で生まれる小さな信頼関係が失われた損失は、数字には表れにくい。
Workplace relationships, too, are losing the density they once had. With the spread of remote work, the chances of meeting colleagues face to face have plummeted. Convenient as it may be, the loss of the small bonds of trust born in casual chatter is a cost that does not easily show up in the numbers.