The feeling came to me as I entered the office building this morning after a brief solitary automobile commute: "I need a tribe". I need a group of people I share a continuity with, interdependent, feeding on each other in many ways. Sometimes I've experienced that briefly at a job. I wish for a more sustained version. Some people get this at church or school. As a busy father in a medium-sized town, doing contract work for a big company, I'm too isolated. We don't have a regular circle of friends that we have dinner with often, for example.
While blogging gives some connectivity through writing (though I haven't established the links that other bloggers have), it just isn't the connection that we've evolved for thousands of years to want. The Internet will never approximate the face to face. Maybe our family should move to a small town in Vermont.
Then I read in whiskey river:
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."Yes, this is what we're called to do by our highest consciousness. The problem is that we're evolved to do otherwise. And yes, part of our highest calling, especially now as we each have new global reach, is indeed to fight some of the things deeply ingrained in us by our evolutionary history.
- Albert Einstein
We're at a discontinuity in history. We've suddenly (by historical standards) become connected globally, yet are often isolated. The social entities we form are dispersed and often transient. Our attentions are so drawn by our jobs that we have little community in our communties.
That's part of the appeal of this mostly-broadcast medium of weblogging. We're trying to substitute for what we really need socially. "Writing ourselves into existence" is a poor substitute for just living well.
Damn, I've got to get out more. Thanks for the wake-up call, Steve.
May 24, 2002 09:28 AM