#32: do we need people?

i think we do.

      

Henry Matisse.

do we need people?

    There is a growing sentiment on the internet. Slowly, this idea has seeped into the walls of our collective lives and is looking to replace the objective truth. It has wormed its way into our psyche, affecting us even when we are least aware of it. The sentiment?  That we do not need anyone, and we can go through life on our own. I’ve seen so many iterations of this idea, especially on TikTok and Twitter (We are never calling it X). Some time ago, Twitter was in flames with discourse on whether or not it was okay to request that your friend pick you up from the airport when ride-sharing apps like Uber and Bolt exist. We are at a point where our natural inclination is to argue in favor of ride-sharing apps over the inconvenience of picking up or dropping off our friends from the airport. In general, we are in favor of convenience over any sort of inconvenience.

our feelings have become our god.

I mean, we are all used to it now; the convenience of life made so by apps and little changes in behavior. But have we ever considered that these changes are making us much worse friends than the generations before us? Have we ever considered that this new god, the god of comfortability, has ruined the essence of friendships as we know it? In this new world, our feelings, no matter how badly placed they are, have become our god and our compass for our lives and conduct. We have learned to prioritize our feelings, and I mean, that is not a bad thing at all, I am all for feeling. But we need to be reminded that how we feel sometimes is not the reality. We need to toe the line healthily between feeling and reality. 

I believe that therapy-speak has made us much more selfish and self-important. Most people employ therapy-speak as a justification for bad behavior. Most badly behaved people use the justification and affirmation they get from therapy as a weapon against the people in their lives. There is no real incentive for change. Are we thinking about ourselves too much? And is it driving us crazy? I think we are, and I think it is. 

bring back inconvenience in friendships.

What makes a friendship great? Is it only camaraderie? I don’t think so. I think we believe we can channel 21st-century convenience into interpersonal relationships and we really cannot.  Interpersonal relationships require work. They require sacrifice. Even the process of making a new friend requires work. We have to engage in small talk. We have to ask people how their day is or how their day went. We have to be polite and personable. We have to reply to text messages and not leave people on read. 

We should expect more of our friends and they should expect more of us. And we can only expect more if we do more. If your friend is moving apartments, offer to help them. If your friend is going to the airport, offer to follow them and help them. Follow your friend around town for moral support or company.  Visit them and bring food along. Host them if you can. Be very open to showing your love in action, in sacrifice. To expect more of people, we have to do more for people and enjoy doing more for them because we love them. That is what love means. Love is a verb. It’s action. It’s behavior. Its consideration of the highest form.

Maybe the “loneliness epidemic” is largely influenced by our impersonal behavior. We don’t engage in small talk. We aren’t polite to people we don’t know. Some of us are even rude. We value nonchalance. But is individualism, this idea that we are self-reliant and can be a one-man army, more important than the communal good?

Placing ourselves at the center of our lives only makes us miserable. Self-service breeds nothing but discontent. We were never made to think of ourselves for too long. We were made to exist in a community.

you cannot pop out and show niggas if you have no niggas.

Have we ever considered that the real currency is community? Community makes the world go around. Community is political. Community is powerful. Why do you think the powers that be work so hard to disconnect us from each other? It is because if we are all united, if we are all in community, we are unstoppable. That’s the power of community. 

Fatima Mohammed

articulated it better in her essay, On Zooming Out. She said “Our individualistic disposition is ruining our world” and truer words were never spoken. 

I think one of the reasons Drake lost badly to Kendrick was because he represents our modern culture: excess, an apparent distaste for quality art, appropriation of aesthetics and culture without understanding and honor,  pride, self-interest, and anti-intellectualism. He lost badly because he had never prioritized community. You cannot pop out and show niggas if you have no niggas. What Kendrick did on Juneteenth can never be recreated by Drake because, well… he doesn’t have the community backing him.  What Drake —and the rest of us learned through this debacle is that the things that we think matter, don't. The internet and numbers and bots cannot and will not translate to real tangible communities. We get carried away by the fog that is the internet and its illusions, forgetting that there exists a physical, tangible reality, a reality that we must engage with. 

in conclusion:

As a collective, I think we need to stop blaming our behavior on others and look into ourselves. The truth, after all, remains. Only we can change our lives. If we want to stop feeling lonely we have to do something about it. If we want to be better friends and have better friends, only we can do something about it. Maybe the key to a better, more fulfilled life is zooming out. Self-service serves no one, including ourselves. 

Weekly favorites:

• Kendrick’s Juneteenth concert, of course. Made my week. My man brought the whole of LA together, along with the color-coordinated organizations if you catch my drift. I enjoyed it very much. Sorry to Drake, but he lost big time.

• Twitter during the Juneteenth concert. See as everywhere hot. Banger tweets left and right. 

• The phrase “pop out and show niggas”. I love it. I plan to use it religiously this summer. If you follow me on social media, brace yourself. You’ll see it everywhere. Sorry, not sorry. 

• The Gambian accent. I shall not elaborate.

• The last I Said What I Said episode had me howling. DO NOT LISTEN to it in public and do not listen to it whilst eating. IYKYK.

• Jackie Hill Perry’s new song, First Draft.

• Also, where can I learn to crip walk?!

• Heather Havrilesky’s latest advice column was splendid as usual.

  'I'm 35 and I Feel Like a Shell of a Person!'

• I also really enjoyed

  sarah cucchiara
  ‘s essay:

  sarahtopia

  I enjoy Sarah’s substack — People’s Princess — a lot. Every post is amazing. Her essay, brilliantly titled, not everyone can be an it-girl altered my brain chemistry. Check her out.

see you next week 

xoxo,

blessing.