It’s actually fewer steps. Society is just late-stage community.
Our brains evolved for living in groups of ~30-100 people. These communities are small enough to all know and support each other through life’s inevitable struggles. A healthy society is made up of thousands of these smaller, tight-knit communities, not just millions of individuals.
Our brains are not happy alone—not for extended periods. Reducing all our social interaction to anonymous chats (like this one) and passing hundreds of nameless faces does not fulfill your social needs and will leave you feeling lonely.
It is work, and you will encounter people that suck and/or won’t reciprocate, but if you keep at it, good people will reveal themselves. I promise it’s worth it.
This is also how Mormon churches work, last I checked; they’re called “wards,” and when a single ward grows to >500 members, they split off into two wards, to make sure everyone knows each other decently enough (probably to make sure they’re all tithing regularly and crap, but without such a sinister agenda, that can legitimately be a beautiful thing).
I’ve been told that humans need community and social contact, but when I was living in the woods for 18 months, only really interacting with my remote coworkers, and spending my time doing yard work and home improvement I was at my happiest and healthiest.
Honestly, even seeing hundreds of people a day is my idea of hell.
You don’t need to know well all those dozens of people; it’s just more about not being total strangers. We would ideally have 1-3 very close friends and then a slightly wider circle of the next ring, and so on.
I would say your level of exclusivity is very rare. Few people can tolerate that little contact for that long. There is certainly a middle ground for everyone’s satisfaction and it’s great that you found yours but the majority of friendless society is lonely. Maybe you jive with your remote coworkers more than other people do with their regular company.
It’s actually fewer steps. Society is just late-stage community.
Our brains evolved for living in groups of ~30-100 people. These communities are small enough to all know and support each other through life’s inevitable struggles. A healthy society is made up of thousands of these smaller, tight-knit communities, not just millions of individuals.
Our brains are not happy alone—not for extended periods. Reducing all our social interaction to anonymous chats (like this one) and passing hundreds of nameless faces does not fulfill your social needs and will leave you feeling lonely.
It is work, and you will encounter people that suck and/or won’t reciprocate, but if you keep at it, good people will reveal themselves. I promise it’s worth it.
This is the way.
This is also how Mormon churches work, last I checked; they’re called “wards,” and when a single ward grows to >500 members, they split off into two wards, to make sure everyone knows each other decently enough (probably to make sure they’re all tithing regularly and crap, but without such a sinister agenda, that can legitimately be a beautiful thing).
I’ve been told that humans need community and social contact, but when I was living in the woods for 18 months, only really interacting with my remote coworkers, and spending my time doing yard work and home improvement I was at my happiest and healthiest.
Honestly, even seeing hundreds of people a day is my idea of hell.
You don’t need to know well all those dozens of people; it’s just more about not being total strangers. We would ideally have 1-3 very close friends and then a slightly wider circle of the next ring, and so on.
I would say your level of exclusivity is very rare. Few people can tolerate that little contact for that long. There is certainly a middle ground for everyone’s satisfaction and it’s great that you found yours but the majority of friendless society is lonely. Maybe you jive with your remote coworkers more than other people do with their regular company.