What does it take and how likely is it to have fulfilling and meaningful connections in our well-structured reality?
Regardless of one’s age, social status, religious affiliation, or conviction, each of us deserves to have a fulfilling human experience that comes through meaningful connections in the most fundamental life areas, such as work, social circles, family, and intimate partnership.
Predetermined social construct:
How have we reached the point where interactions with others turned into transactions that lack rich context and a wider meaning? Oftentimes, it carries a certain value to the extent of a specific construct or a theme, such as meeting to accomplish a certain goal or hitting an athletic or intellectual milestone.
If you live in a small, family-oriented city or town, there aren’t many outlets designed for an adult’s social engagement, let alone other single individuals who might share your values, lifestyle, or interests. Abundant themes to interact and entertain engagingly are available solely to children or retired citizens, but the actively working and career-focused age category, which seeks different ways to engage is left out.
When the culture is well-structured and you can tell the difference between sketchy and relatively safe neighborhoods, and see a strict separation of interests, social classes, and hierarchy, your activities in such an environment are well-defined and predetermined:
If you want to engage in physical activity such as running, hiking, or climbing, you do it on your own, find a companion, or join a themed meetup group. If you want to practice figure drawing, you find a model, take a figure drawing class, or, again, join a meetup group that includes members who share the same goal: to get out there and practice drawing skills. The same goes for any other activity, whether it is coding, cooking, sewing, or discussing a book.
Usually, there aren’t too many common topics or traits that may extend your interactions beyond a very specific activity or discussion that was planned within a well-defined setting. It is no wonder that due to such few themes overlaps and narrow frameworks, one may experience a sense of separation and isolation on a systemic basis.
Social contracts:
There is a value in a well-structured and predetermined culture: it prevents chaos and uncertainty. It shows consideration of one’s personal space and autonomy that must not be invaded. We are left to our own devices to explore the intellectual, spiritual, and athletic limits of the sacred mind and body, and it is only with our permission that someone could join us in the process, by the contracts that we enter with someone through classrooms, offices, or other common spaces.
Overcoming structural boundaries that block meaningful connections:
Because most of us agree with such social arrangement by default, any spontaneity is received with a certain degree of skepticism and hesitation. Flash mobs have started emerging out of necessity: to shake the status quo and invite spontaneity and randomness into our structured lives. After all, the knowledge and experiences that are self-contained and not disseminated generously are relatively useless due to their poor flow and, what’s even worse: stagnation.
Innovation is known to come out of unexpected symbioses of, at first glance, unrelated concepts or ideas. It is due to a playful interaction of lively mindsets that the world around us becomes an interesting, entertaining, and humorous place with only a balanced amount of structure around it. The latter helps to maintain some consistency and discipline, and it is great when it serves this purpose, just like the riverbeds that help waters to stream in a certain direction.
Awaken the inner child:
To move away from such stagnant experiences and invite a spontaneous and healthy flow of ideas into our overly structured lives, we witness the emergence of social remedies that are unique and amusing in their style and concept: flash mobs, the increasing popularity of Burning Man and music festivals, block parties, and pop-up activities for adults (although, the latter may feel somewhat structured nowadays).
Such remedies prompt us to engage with others in more spontaneous ways and challenge the mere practicality of human interaction. Not that the practical part should be completely ignored, after all, it is within our subconscious survival code that we need each other to serve a certain function through the exchange of favors, services, and resources with each other – it offers stability and a certain degree of security for us.
But once these basic needs are met, what comes next? How to recognize boundless ways in which curious minds can engage with one another? We likely used to know but forgot, as our playful inner child has built too many protective and rigid layers that muted this innocent voice and lowered the temperature of excitement. But the question persists: is it possible to take some of these layers off, awaken the forgotten voice, and use it in our realities fearlessly and playfully?
Exploring leisure, social networking, relationships and traveling destinations.
Latest Comments:
Thank you so much for your comment, John. Traveling definitely helps to break the locked cycle and brings some fresh…
We seem to crave both certainty and uncertainty in our lives. As you described, our world have become more structured…
It’d be great to see examples of how others interact with their environment and any challenges/obstacles that come with it.…
Leave a Reply