The loneliest People In the World

MAN IS A SOCIAL ANIMAL said aristotle.  Well, maybe. At least part of the time, in certain cultures.But you'd never know it, if you were born in the united states of america, and never traveled abroad.

In america, it is mandatory to marry, have children, divorce, and live alone with tinted car windows and screened phone calls. Second and third marriages are shorter than first marriages, and children become ping pong balls until they grow up and join the merry go round.

The average upper middle class american household contains three automobiles, four big screen television sets, seven cell phones, one microwave oven, no smart phones, eleven unidentifiable electronic entertainment devices,a carport (this is a special bedroom designed for and used exclusively by cars), a jacuzzy, a liquor cabinet, and less than one complete materialistic human being.

I have dozens of friends, accumulated over the years, mostly from childhood and high school, who have scattered all across the country. Many of them I haven't seen or talked to in twenty years. Every once in awhile I get in contact with them. I cannot recall one instance in which an old friend ever asked me anything about myself other than the perfunctory "how are you doing"?

By the time we conclude our joyous reunion, the only thing they know about me is that I am alive. And I know precious little about them, because they volunteer little, and the more questions I ask, the less interested they seem in describing their lives to me.

In many case I have no idea whether they are married, have childern, where they work,and what they do in their spare time, this after talking with them for an extended period of time. We are all caught up in our own lives, and have little energy left over with which to absorb information about others.

The term "self centered" usually is intended as a negative description. It really shouldn't be, because if one does not center one's life on one's self, then what? to be self centered is to be healthy and normal, to be "self absorbed", which implies an absence of others in one's thoughts, is a disease which permeates our culture of the individual.

My friend from china once said to me "you americans are the loneliest people in the world. You care more about your dogs and cats than you do each other".  He is quite correct of course, but there is nothing wrong about that, as long as we care a great deal about our dogs and cats, and everyone else isn't too terribly far behind.