Sometimes I feel oddly alone in the town I’ve always lived in. One would think this, of all places, would be where I know the most people. Perhaps that is still true, but I still know very few.
Its not as if I don’t know why this is so. I’m not the most social person in the world, and I spent all of my schooling since I was fourteen at locations twenty-five miles from my home. But since graduating in summer of 2005 I’ve only really met 7 or 8 people outside of my job. That is an average of like 2 people a year.
I am probably being melodramatic because one of those few people is moving at the end of the week. It is just all so sudden, and gets me thinking. Made me start thinking that perhaps I know so few people because of a subconscious desire for the small community life that no longer seems to exist. A more tribal time.
While thinking about these things I heard a news report about the Devadasis in India being a reason AIDS is such a problem in that country. All I could think about was how in the old days when communities were so much smaller the priestess’ jobs would service a very small community. This rapid spread of disease would be much less likely to happen because of that simple fact.
Perhaps humans were much more of a pack animal in the past. Small groups where everyone knew everyone. The loss of one was the pain of all.
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You're so right! The ancestral human community was a small hunting-gathering group comprised of a few clans and totalling 30-50 people. I think over-population and rampant technological addiction to virtual social networks has robbed us both of healthy social connections (to family, clan and community) and healthy isolation (creative, introspective solitude).
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