our bodies are not made for social interaction at this scale
06 Jul 2020the other day, my friend, allen, had an IGTV interview that was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people on an IG account that has 18 million followers. as we were discussing the aftermath in a group whatsapp thread, something dawned on me in a new way:
we are not made for social interaction at this scale.
this, of course, is not a new thought. but it just hit a little different the other day. there was something that came through to me about the way our physical bodies are not made for that type of attention (and i won’t even start on how our brains are not evolved to handle our communications systems (IG, facebook, twitter, text messaging, emails)).
holding and wielding the attention of hundreds of thousands of people at simultaneously is unnatural. the sensations our bodies experience in those moments is just wild. i’ve never operated at that scale and i already know the scale i’m operating at is getting too big.
so then as this thought developed, i realized that there are other situations that create this type of unnatural scale of engagement, particularly things that i have struggled with for a long and now am seeing a new layer of why:
- sending emails to big listservs
- grieving people who are murdered by the police
i’m sure there are more, but those are the two that came to mind quick.
is this just a new stage of human evolution? something that will become normal and our bodies will evolve and adjust? maybe. change is constant so i certainly can’t rule it out.
but in the meantime, i’m feeling good that i’m going to hold myself with a lot more ease around operating at scale that my body is just not built to endure. i’ll do it, mostly because i have to, but i am excited to be more in right relationship with the mismatch. and maybe i’ll start trying to construct my life to be more at a scale that feels more natural… hm!
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