On loneliness

What is this feeling we can all experience, isolated in the dark hours of early morning or walking invisibly through a dense crowd, called loneliness? What is this intense motivation to connect with others? Evolutionary psychologists would say that connectedness reduces risk of fatality and increases opportunity to reproduce, and they would be right. Humans, from nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes to religious organizations to family units in all their modern forms, have formed kinship groups since the beginning of their existence. Western technological advancement has worked against this principle desire, separating people into smaller groups, emphasizing individuality over the good of the whole, encouraging relocation multiple times over the lifespan.

We've severed our own limb and its leaving us desperately wanting. We seek the comfort and safety of built-in community anywhere we can find it: university fraternities & sororities, neighborhood homeowners associations, mega-churches. And still loneliness seeps into our lives when we are surrounded by people.

More recently I've noticed people seeking it in music. I've spent the last couple years in the modern 'rave scene.' You can clearly see the purpose this scene exists to fulfill by looking at their motto - PLUR or peace, love, unity, respect. They want to gather together in masses, united by rather trivial characteristics like music preference, age bracket, economic standing, clothing choices, drug preferences, etc. in order to find the same feeling hunter-gatherers experienced simply from traveling together. What do they hope to get out from this sense of unity and connectedness? Peace, love and respect. Are they actually getting it there? No, probably not.

When you take a step back, how strange is it actually that 1-4 people get together and invent a complex sound pattern, then hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of fans over time create this subculture that revolves around a complex sound pattern. The sound then becomes an abstract identifier that you are part of this collective whole that enjoys and understands that particular pattern and the subculture that emerged from it.