We are all animals
We might have come from caves to castles, our problems would have changed from hunting to the size of our smartphones but even with millenia gone by, we all crave this one common need.
We are all animals. No matter how hard we try to stand out amongst the 7 billion, deep down we all want to feel that we are part of a tribe.
You may think you get mature over time but sometimes it feels like a lightning bolt hit you at night and the very next day, you have new eyes. You don’t look at work, your parents, your friends the same way. You either want to rise above the circle you are in or find a new clique.
Growing up in India, I never paid heed to my need for social belonging. I grew up in a joint family so I always felt protected. Every summer break, I was trying my hands on a new hobby. Pursuing co-curricular activities introduced me to another array of people, where we shared a common goal and felt, connected. Whether it was painting on a blank canvas or gearing up for a tennis match, there was some camaraderie outside the school life.
When I moved to another country, the adventure to explore new pastures kept me busy. I had left everything I knew back home and wanted to explore new opportunities. I had all the time to try new routes without seeking anyone’s permission. I could take decisions without anyone’s judgement seeping in.
Only when the novelty wore off, I recognised the void that kept lingering. It took me a while to give it a name. Was this loneliness just temporary or was it boredom? Maybe all I needed was another activity to stimulate my brain — something new to keep myself distracted?
Within a month, my new job felt like lukewarm coffee (spoilers: no coffee snob drinks lukewarm coffee!). The colleagues I befriended gave in to their need for change or went back to hanging out with their own little tribe.
It was after the glimmer of all the shiny objects faded that I realised there was something deeper going on. It wasn’t a common goal, I was looking for commune.
The feeling of belonging, the need to feel a genuine human connection kept me up for nights. Even the king of the jungle prides in going anywhere in a pride of lions. Penguins are one of the most social birds. The emperor penguins stay together in the Antarctic, so they can protect themselves from the cold. One of the key benefits of living in a social group is that offsprings stand a better chance of survival.
If animals could understand that, how have we, as humans, lost the importance of human connection?
Kodokushi (孤独死) or lonely death refers to a Japanese phenomenon of people dying alone and remaining undiscovered for a long period of time. It’s not just Japan anymore. Loneliness is slowly becoming a global epidemic. I am not here to tell you that technology is contributing to this epidemic, but couldn’t the fact that we are all craving human connection be an easy assumption to let ourselves be the most vulnerable self?
It leads me back to one of those few lessons that were edged in my memory. When it came to expressing your emotions on a deeper level, I recollected one of the words our communications professor taught us in college — catharsis; meaning: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. Crying was cathartic to me. Writing to a friend was cathartic to me.
And that’s why I am here, writing this piece to fellow readers as a form of catharsis. People think you feel lonely when you have no-one around, but the truth is you feel lonelier amongst a crowd where you don’t belong. I couldn’t ask what I needed because I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. It wasn’t until I read this beautiful piece by May Pang that I realised what was going on.
Maybe the feeling of going back home kept fleeting because I missed being part of the clan. Maybe what I need was people who would go beyond the cup of coffee, and stay back to have deeper conversations about life. Maybe I needed people who made me feel protected when they saw me vulnerable, instead of making me feel like a wounded soldier.
I know my tribe is out there, I know your tribe is out there too. We just have to find them through the common principles we value most, through common goals but also through the establishment that there is going to be no barter system of favours, only a relationship where we help each other grow together.
