Cubicle Culture

There is a certain amount of otherworldly strangeness that comes from working in a cubicle.
There you sit, doing your best to do you work. The confines around you have been designed to make this easier. Bare walls to reduce distraction. Small desk space making clutter almost physically impossible because why the hell would you even think you could fit a book on the desk in the first place, let alone a drink or your mobile? You can't see anyone, they can't see you, and for all intents and purposes the world doesn't exist.
Perfect for keeping your mind sharply attuned to the work at hand - editing, writing, managing, accounting, all sorts of -ings.
Sadly, there are those among us - notably myself - for whom this collection of supposedly streamlining criterion creates an environment ripe for...

The Existential Crisis.

No, I am not talking about the intense desire to go out and stab an Arab (before the ACLU contacts me about a hate crime, might I suggest you kindly fuck-off and read a book). I am referring to a horrifying period lasting no less than five seconds but not to exceed one lifetime during which the entirety of your existence is up for debate.
Allow me to illustrate:
Currently I am sitting in a box that could not accommodate two of me. All around me I sense the telltale signs of other intelligent life. The sound of tapping keyboards, of errant sneezes and coughs, muffled conversations. The smell of some exotic food freshly cooked in the office microwave. Other people are out there... the clues to their existence are faint and insubstantial yet tantalizing.
However, I cannot see them. From my lowly perch I can just see the walls of my cube, the screen of my PC, the single notepad that I have never used.
But there is writing on it! And my God, I think I just heard footsteps, and if I crane my neck just a bit I think I can see someone standing on the other side of the room! I am not alone! Like the great pyramids, like the face on mars, like the Tunguska event, these are the signs that my little world is just the beginning of a great expanse of other life with which to interact and learn and grow!
Invert this argument. If the cubicle was all I ever knew, I would be skeptical of other people existing. But they do. So even though this world is all we know, and we think we have it all figured out, maybe those above mentioned wonders are the sounds of alien keyboards tapping.

Or...
I could just be imagining all these things. Creating them in my mind. Solitude and the realization of my own infinitesimally minuscule place in the world has forced me to create these myths to allow myself the small glimmer of hope that will buoy me up.

See what I mean? I shouldn't be thinking about this while I am writing profiles and editing poorly written documents and otherwise trying to make a living. Either I am a sick, sick man, or something needs to change.

In short... I wish my cubicle were closer to the window, and that I hadn't forgotten my iPod today.