Isolation or community? Maybe both?

Isolation and community are rarely related with each other at the same time. Isolation can be physical or mental. Isolation can be made by yourself or by the community you live in. One can argue that those two terms can not go along each other since isolation is an antonym of community. It is, however, untrue. Two antonym terms can go along each other in our actions. Those two terms can represent something different; however, it is how we perceive those terms gives them their meaning.
If for Mr.S a isolation means physically alone and when he is being asked to illustrate his point, he would probably draw a closed room, with no windows, only with one person inside; but what if for Mr.P isolation means only mentally isolated, and he would draw an auditorium full of people, where only one person would be shaded black. Mr.P feels isolated in the room full of people. How is it possible since isolation and community are completely different terms? Mr.P feels isolated because he does not think about people surrounding him. Maybe he does not know anyone in an auditorium, therefore he feels alone because he cannot talk to anyone. he feels mentally alone because he is not physically alone. It proves that isolation itself can be physical and mental. However, isolation and community can work together. There are situations when we can be isolated in a room full of people, it is how we feel that make us isolated.

In Chapters eight from ALWG I perceive Ishmael Beah struggling with isolation. The way he described the experience helped me to understand Isolation more than before. Also the isolation he felt reminded me what happened when I tried to get isolated couple of weeks ago. He felt alone with not much to do and his mind started to bring him bad memories, memories he did not wanted to remember. This example help me to understand more what really happens when you are alone, isolated from anyone physically; your mind thinks like crazy.
Then, in Chapter 9, he talks about the idea of community, how he finally joined a group of boys he knew from school. He talks about what they did, how they acted as a group, how they had fun with a ball of cloth, how they sang different songs; all sort of things kids at their age would normally do, and they were doing them even in the hard time they were experiencing, but I can feel a sense of isolation there. Maybe is that they act like a group, they try to hold to each other maybe they feel more safe; but, it seems that Ishmael's mind is isolated the same about the other boys. I feel that they are thinking on the personal experiences they have gone through, not as the whole group, only personal. It could be that they saw a family member or some die in front of them or other disturbing images that a war can cause. they act physically as a group, but their minds are isolated from each others.
For me the way Ishmael Beah described what he went through helped me to understand isolation and community in a different perspective; not from the perspective of a book, dictionary or someone who studies human nature. This is the perspective of a twelve year old boy, who at this small age had to go through death, fear, hunger, survival, isolation and many other things that we as regular people won't even experience in our childhood, maybe never.