It’s somewhat a paradox viewed at from the outside, that in a age when we can contact so many people that we are so lonely. That with such a plethora of options for meeting people that so many of us are so lonely. I think it is precisely that, that is the problem, the problem of it being to big.
It is like we are shipwrecked sailors, caught out in vast ocean, thirsty being surrounded by water all around yet never being able to assuage that need. It is option overload, it is our inability to confront the large. You can be lost and lonely in sea of people just as if it were only trees and all around you there was no people. It’s a problem of their not being enough limitations to our options, I know I know, what he’s saying that what I have is to much. But it makes sense if you think about it, we are limited creatures, capable of processing only so much information, of only connecting to so many people. We are designed that way, it’s not our fault. There are studies that say the optimum happiness number is something like tens of people, primarily because for much of our evolutionary history as a species we have been tribal, and only limited to approximately that many people. Emotionally and psychologically we are most comfortable in that amount of people. So what happens when we are confronted with millions of people, all of which we connect with, with everything from youtube, myspace, various dating sites? How much meaning do we attach to those millions of connections? I suspect very little, it is so big we might as well be alone, and in so doing the loneliness creeps in. So some advice from a fellow lonely seeker, limit your social contact online to small group, you will feel better, and your friends will mean so much more.
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