Thoughtful and thought-provoking as always, James. I concur fully with the distinction you have made and explored here. I have only one point of disagreement, with this paragraph:
"As we age, we have less of a need for so many interactions. We know who we are and what will make us happy, and we can usually happily exist in just a few interactions a day or perhaps even a week. At the same time, we crave deeper connections—to connect more authentically and openly with fewer people."
I can kind of construct a narrative for myself where this is true. But equally, I have another plausible self-narrative where the opposite is almost true: when I was young, I wanted every interaction to be authentic, open and original; these days, I'm pretty happy if more than half of them comprise mostly small-talk. I'm not impatient, as I used to be, with quotidian conversations about everyday things.
Yes, I think that's also true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that when we're young we often crave authentic connections with a large number of people, as we instinctively search for our tribe and our partners, and in doing so we often overstretch ourselves, and expect too much, and suffer from loneliness.
Thoughtful and thought-provoking as always, James. I concur fully with the distinction you have made and explored here. I have only one point of disagreement, with this paragraph:
"As we age, we have less of a need for so many interactions. We know who we are and what will make us happy, and we can usually happily exist in just a few interactions a day or perhaps even a week. At the same time, we crave deeper connections—to connect more authentically and openly with fewer people."
I can kind of construct a narrative for myself where this is true. But equally, I have another plausible self-narrative where the opposite is almost true: when I was young, I wanted every interaction to be authentic, open and original; these days, I'm pretty happy if more than half of them comprise mostly small-talk. I'm not impatient, as I used to be, with quotidian conversations about everyday things.
Yes, I think that's also true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that when we're young we often crave authentic connections with a large number of people, as we instinctively search for our tribe and our partners, and in doing so we often overstretch ourselves, and expect too much, and suffer from loneliness.