Unfortunately millions of people are diagnosed with depression every day, most of which are results of loneliness. The older waiter in Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” faces this depression with an almost existential mindset. When in the presence of the young waiter who has “everything” the older waiter realizes that his life has no defined meaning. Unlike the young waiter, who has youth, confidence, companionship, and a job, the older waiter has only work. While the young waiter hurries home to join his wife in bed, the older waiter lolls around at night alone feeling nothing. His nothing is not in the usual sense though. Rather than not feeling anything the older waiter is experiencing a lack of meaning in his life. Nothingness is
