The Unexpected Pleasures of Being Human

I'm not sure what percentage of the world's population lives in urban environments today (you can check out Google, just remember not to be evil), but I'm pretty sure that it's not only the majority, but that's it's still rising. We live in an increasingly crowded and anonymous world where others become like white noise, like the background you wouldn't really care to inspect. We're given more and more choice of how to design our social networks and more social tolerance with the way we do so. Our connections are becoming ever more intricate through the development of urban life, the internet, and the wide-spread ease of travel.


Amongst ordinary days, when one really is just a passing grain of the overall texture, there sometimes happen wondrous moments when we discover other people. There is something deeply satisfying about finding a mutual connection with another, a new person. Despite the understood facts of how much we all share though our minds' wiring, emotions, goals, and troubles, for some reason the discovery of another and the unexpected intimacy of minds can be a delight. The other person becomes real and from that point you can review the background noise of surrounding people as a brain-like buzzing network of internal complexities with mutually reinforcing, snapping connections. In our rather closed-in networks of friends, colleagues, and fellow-students, these unexpected pleasures can let us refresh and rediscover our connection to the rest of the world.