... the return of the hermit
it has always fascinated me that humans need interaction with other humans, and that generally this interaction needs to be largely positive in order to be able to live a peaceful life. yet it has long been said that humans require other humans to satisfy an emotional need.
individuals deprived of any human contact invariably suffer degrees of emotional distress, and it is well documented that children of emotionally distant parents suffer later in life, often failing to adequately express their emotions in a verbal or sexual manner.
so, although in theory contact and interaction with other humans is essential to our very survival, aside from the obvious reproductive issues, i can sometimes see no real reason why the modern human needs other humans ... it's 'the return of the hermit’.
every day, people fed up with the increasingly unsatisfactory ‘outside world’ retire to their ‘everything i need is here’ abode and try very hard to stay there unless it becomes absolutely unavoidable to 'go outside'.
i now have less human contact than i have ever had in my life. and as a consequence, i am much happier and more tolerant during those unavoidable ‘mix ups’ that occur during human interaction of any kind.
the increase in my patience and tolerance leads me to believe that the problem may be that there are just too damn many of us living too damn close together. i don’t think we were designed to tolerate living with so many other people being so nearby so constantly.
as a solution, we have elected to build and live in these things full of windows that we cover with curtains. we surround them with fences, give them a number and put locks all over them in order to prevent the people we chose to live 2 feet away from from seeing us.
paradoxically, staying away from people has made me like them again. the utter luxury of personal privacy and a shrunken world has given me a new perspective. it’s not pity. i just know where they’re coming from now.
and whilst needing other people will probably always be a human need, the increasing trend for ‘not needing other people’ may eventually bring about more togetherness than we think.