In the days when communities were close knit and stable for generations, how did individuals view themselves?
What was like when people lived in villages and grew up together in a community?
In that environment people could get as close to others in the community as with their own family. Maybe people thought of everyone as a big extended family.
They would notice strangers immediately, and how they affected the balance of things.
Within living memory we have seen how individual expression has ballooned, And everything is getting faster and faster.
There was a time when change was not expected: Now we expect change.
Change and varieties of expression are part of us now.
All these varieties of expression fill a need and a desire or they wouldn't have taken off like they have.
So what is it like to be an individual now? With so many billions of people on the planet, it is easy to say that many people are redundant, irrelevant. They are not needed to keep the species going or to develop new ideas or methods or technologies.
At least for the time being, they are not needed despite falling birth rates below the replacement rate worldwide.
In fact the current occupants of the planet are needed mostly so that they continue to buy things.
For the person in that position it is not a very satisfying feeling
Add to that the feeling that things are getting worse, not better generally.
People see that money is getting tighter and they think maybe the planet is going down the drain. Or at least things are not getting better for most people, even if a few are doing unbelievably well.
It is getting tougher for people to find meaning in their lives.
How do people find meaning in their lives when they feel irrelevant?
Or to put it the other way around, and it really is a question - what is the origin of the need to feel relevant, meaningful, and significant?
The psychologist Viktor Frankl says that the meaning of life is in how a person responds to life as it comes to meet them.
That may be so. But in a crowded world the bottom can get knocked out of a person's will to act responsibly. They might feel that it simply doesn't matter how they react to life, the whole structure is an irrelevant to them.
It gets worse. How does a person even know which of their responses are truly theirs? We are all influenced by our environment, and what is to say that the environment is working for us and not against us?
Frankl also said that meaning - as in 'this means something to me' must be found and cannot be given (much less imposed) from outside.
Who doesn't recognise the fear of losing one's way - of being swept up in a convincing story and then being attached to a cause where attachment fills a need greater than an examination of the truth.
Eric Hoffer writes about this in The True Believer, which is well worth reading.
One thing is certain is that when man lacks the support of the family, the community, the village - he is on his own.
Without the village to rely on, we have to live with uncertainty, and in its nature uncertainty is unpalatable.
That's where a more fundamental science of connection enters.
