Topic awaiting preservation: Burnt out But Lonely (Page 1 of 1)

I am in a rather strange place for myself, which is being incredibly lonely. It is just that kind of time, where everyone is away from me, when I am used to have many people around me. I could have people around me if I were to stay at work, however, the development enviorment tends to burn me out and I need to leave work after a 10 or 11 hour day since I just can't be productive in that enviornment anymore.

The strange thing to me is that when I am at home and noone is around I become incredibly lonely. I am good for about the first hour, but after an hour I just can not stand being alone. It really is starting to bother me, the fact that I can not stand to be completely isolated from other human beings.

It brings me to the question: Why are humans such social animals?

Hm.

I can't stand to be too long *without* being alone.

funny...

I've always wondered why humans are so social too.

Well, I'm pretty far along the antisocial end of the curve, but not abnormally so. I prefer to spend large amounts of my time alone, however, I do feel the need for human contact every now and then.

I'm pretty sure it's part genetic and part social. Humans, like dogs, are pack animals. And as such, for thousands of years we have relied on the pack or group that we belonged to in order to survive. Within all this, social structures evolved in order to meet the changing needs of the times.

So, even those of us who truly value our solitude, will also feel the need to be social.

WarMage: I'm sorry to hear you get so lonely.

Its a tricky one - I'm quite happy with my own company and this time in the morning suits me when it is nice and quiet and the phone isn't ringing and no one is calling around but perhaps that is because I'm not short of company if I want it. A lot of my family and friends are nearby (a lot within walking distance) so perhaps I'm enjoying the peace and quiet.

So perhaps you can have too much of a good thing either way (depending on one's tempremant). Although we are pack animals we probably also spent quite a while away from the group hunting and gathering.

I you are looking for ideas get a low maintenance pet or meet people outside of work (pos. do a bit of voluntary work for a worthy cause) which would get you out and about.

And you always have the Asylum

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Yes! We're here. I have often wished that we weren't social animals because I love my time alone. But I recognize that it is like paddling upstream to deny our social needs. Better to just give in and find ways to be social in a very productive way. It's just that some people need more socializing than others but everyone needs some.

Keep your pecker up! (That would be the English pecker, i.e. mouth, as opposed to the American, i.e. penis.)

. . : slicePuzzle

I spend incredible amounts of time alone. I work from home, and my wife works at a school in the city center, so when I'm not at school I'm alone. I never really considered myself to be antisocial, but I just happen to do quite fine all by myself. I imagine that after a few days of being alone I might get cabin fever, but I'm generally fine by myself.

As to why we are social creatures, well, if I could write a complete and satisfactory answer to that I would trade it in for a PhD in anthropology. My personal opinion is that we were created to be social beings, but I suppose that would be seen by most as something of a cop out. At the moment, though, that's the best I can offer you.

Hmmm...I like being alone. Being alone, and surrounded by Nature...that, for me, is the best of times...

Sometimes, though, I get...fed up with being alone, and then seek out human interaction...mostly, after I have comptemplated all that, while being alone...and then I am ready for more...until it becomes to much...then the cycle repeats itself.

As to why humans are social...well, this is pretty accurate...if you are a follower of social science...others (followers of psychology) might present it differently...this part, especially, appeals to me

quote:

---

Individuality and independence are highly valued in our society. It is sometimes easy to forget that everything we do, including our private thoughts and fantasies, grows out of or is shaped through our interactions with others, especially others close to us. Whether we like it or not we are born into groups and spend most of our social lives in those same groups. All of us assimilate, at least in part, the perspectives of these groups and thereby acquire our language, values, attitudes, beliefs and sense of identity. The most basic sociological premise is that humans are social beings, shaped in many ways by the groups to which we belong. Whether they be families, athletic teams, clubs (such as sororities and fraternities), religious groups, socioeconomic classes, complex bureaucratic organizations, or nations, much of human life is guided by group norms. Much of human life is also consumed with conflicts between groups, each of which tries to defend its own self interests.

---

However, as long as you are here, at the Asylum, then you are never alone.

Group hug for WarMage!





[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 01-14-2003).]

As long as it's a virtual group hug, I suppose. But if we were all in the same room together right now, I would be running for the hills!!!

Eh, I gave it a bit of thought, and I've come up with the beginning of an answer: we are social beings because interaction with other human beings helps us reaffirm our indentities as individuals. By being exposed to other people and their ideas, we are both supported and challenged, and we constantly redraw the lines that define who we are and where we fit in our environment. If there were no other people around, I think an individual would ultimately lose the ability to distinguish between him or herself and his or her environment--with only the ego to guide us, we would lose perspective.

That's really only a half-thought out answer, and not yet a logical argument. More of an idea tossed into the mix, actually.

We're social animals because we aren't big/fast/strong/agile enough to handle a lion/tiger/bear (oh my!) by ourselves. We didn't get to the top of the food chain by being strong or fast, we got here by being smart.

Smart meant we could build homes and tools...but it also meant we could communicate and (here it is!) organize. It's easier to take out a buffalo (or a gazelle, or a deer, or an antelope or a...) when there are 4 of you than when there is only one of you. (Not that I've ever really tried to kill a buffalo with a rock and a stick, but I'd guess it'd be easier with 4 guys.) And who needs to eat a whole buffalo by themselves anyway?

The socialness of our species is also brought about on a second level -- the level of family. Humans mature unbearably slow. We can't even think of providing for ourselves (especially in the 'wild') until we are probably 10 or 12. Physical maturation (at the point where one could put in 8 - 12 hours of hard labor and actually get something accomplished) doesn't come about until sometime around 14 (maybe a bit earlier, but not much). For the species to survive, there has to be a support structure that will raise these kids for at least 10 years. Compare that to cats which need a few weeks with momma's milk and a few more weeks in protective custody before they are ready to go hunt their own mouse.

The only way to make that 'raising kids' thing happen is to organize social groups starting with the family. Everything else (in the early days) was an extension of that family. If you're raising kids, you can't be hunting. Someone else does the hunting for you. As long as you're hunting, take along a buddy or 4, 'cuz it's easier to kill a buffalo (or a gazelle, or a deer or a...) with 5 guys than with just one. Take it home, split the meat, everybody's full stomachs and we live another day.

In a nutshell, people are social animals because they had to be. It was the only way to survive.

mobrul does have a good point, dealing more with the anthropological aspect of the question, rather than the pyschological. I would also like to point out, in addition to the more basic points mobrul mentioned, that human beings have advanced to this stage because we work, more or less, as a collective. Scientific advances are never the product of a single person, and when the advance is made it goes back into the mix to push humanity that much further forward.

[slightly related point]I know we must have a number of Star Trek fans here. I've always found it interesting how the Borg are portrayed as being so evil, when the idea of a collective is not at all foreign to humanity. Granted, the Borg take it to an extreme, and perhaps that's the point, but I do think there is an excessive emphasis on "rugged individualism" in Star Trek.[/slightly related point]

If we are going into this in any depth then (for pretty much the same reasons mobrul) have we share this kind of group living with most of our primate relatives and I suspect it has been a trait of or lineage for quite a while (if in doubt I always blame ancestral tree shrews - now where did I leave the newspaper ahhhhh... its the fault of the ancestral tree shrews).

On a slightly related but interesting note the pygmies in East Africa have learned how to kill an elephant by themselves. They cover themselves in mud and elephant dung and hide up against a tree until an elephant wanders by and boom. I would imagine they would need friends to get all the meat home though

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Now that is very interesting technique of spattering oneself with pachyderm excrement. I was watching the Lost World on TV a couple months ago and some of the hominids in that show did the exact same thing in order to avoid becoming TRex food.

mobrul did a good job explaining a certain aspect of why we're social animals. When I first heard the question, I considered it very similar to asking why the sky is blue on a sunny clear day. Certainly one could go into level upon level of scientific descriptions of why the wavelengths that reach our retina register the way they do but there will always remain that ultimate level of inquiry as why, even after all the explanation, it's blue and not crimson.

It is much a question with a pretty simple answer.

[aside]I think that it bothered me at that point in time, because it was more loneliness, but only when I was along for a short amount of time. That is where the burnt out came into the picture. It might have been just that I couldn't focus on a topic, when I have focus, a problem to solve, and idea to pull out of my head it all seems to be fine. Maybe it was lonliness in not having anything to do.[/aside]

I do believe we are social and it all comes from our upbringing, in particular our history as Mobrul pointed out, but at the same time I find it confusing at much of our social interactions. Much of the confusion comes from humans being so cruel to one another, on what appears at many times to be on such a grand scale. If it were that people all worked together life would be much easier.

The trials and tribulations make it fun, make the next day worth living. Although I do find it intrinsically offending to think of roling in dung in order to kill something that is obviously over 20 times my own size, when the mushrooms growing on dung of that magnitude might be so much more fun, if not healthier.