Themeattics

I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

A friend mine recently share a statistic with me: one in seven men and one in ten women report having not a single close friend. This was up from one in FIFTY for men and one in A HUNDRED for women in this same study thirty years ago. A staggering, depressing set of numbers to be sure, but I found I wasn’t surprised by it. Not in the least.

I don’t think it’s a stretch for me to say that humanity hasn’t yet come to terms with the existence of the internet. We are experiencing a paradigm shift far beyond the creation of the printing press and the industrial age – maybe more than both combined. The summation of human history has done nothing to prepare us for living in a world where everything is available at our fingertips at a moment’s notice. Every secret, every thought, every whim at the snap of our fingers.

What do these two things have to do with one another? Well, we humans sure do love a bit of affirmation in our lives, don’t we? Some recognition of our work, our ideas, our very being. We love to know we aren’t alone, that there are other people out there who share our values. It makes us feel valid. Makes us feel like we belong somewhere. That we have a community. Friends.

And, to a degree, that’s true. From my own experience I know it was that way in the pre-internet age. But there was one thing then that made it hold more weight. We were confined. At a glance, I know that seems like a drawback. I suppose in many cases it is, but I can’t help but notice how tremendously things have shifted once we, as a species, became trans-borders. Became anonymous. Our smallest desires, our tiniest wants, became things we could search out and find like-minded companions.

Again, that can be a wonderful thing. A bunch of nerds like myself can find other people to play obscure games and delve into strategies. Artists can build communities. Lonely people in small towns can find some people to listen and share parts of their lives. That said, when we find ourselves without limit, we can easily start moving our goal posts.

Find a community who likes fighting games? Great. What’s your stance on hormone therapy? How’s that for whiplash? Hope you answered correctly, or you might find yourself out of that group you thought you had a shared interest with. You see, when you have access to anyone, anywhere, whenever, you can fool yourself into thinking these people are nothing but means to satisfy you. They’re nameless. Faceless. Empty culture-bots that you connect the idea of friendship with but will abandon at the drop of a hat for the next one that is even more a reflection of your own beliefs.

This even seems to bear out in social media with people we know in some passing way in the real world. We tailor our lives to meet some idealistic standard hoping for the dopamine hit of acceptance and envy, never sharing the reality and weight of things that build true friendships. Not the hardships, not the trials. We paint rosy images that mean nothing.

Is it a wonder we’re losing our grip on what it means to be a friend? We’re losing the notion of what it is to be human – or, at least, what it means for everyone else to be. This shift of treating people as dopamine dispensers has got to stop, it’s driving us crazy. Be present in the world. The real one. Talk with the people there. Get close to them, even if you have differences in opinion. Help them out. Have fun.

Things are nice, sure. Connecting over desires or hobbies or beliefs, all great. Nothing’s going to replace the importance of human contact, though. The rise in depression seems to show that pretty clearly. Life’s good, my friends. Do what you can to prove that to those around you.