Well written, in depth, and thought provoking as anticipated, @minismallholding. I am thankful I caught this before it slid out of view in my feed. It is nice to see you are getting some genuine interaction going on an important topic in our day. I trust that provides some encouragement to you that it was an investment of your time worth making.

For my part, I think I'll limit my response this time to just a bullet list, which might be the seeds of future posts, comments, or something:

• "People are communal."



More than any other aspect of understanding why this is the case, I believe it is due to the fact we are incomplete without others. The strengths and weaknesses of us all, if peacefully and productively interwoven? Beneficial! Not so much? Harmful!

• "Loneliness is at epidemic proportions in the western world ..."



And depression. And other maladies. All of which would seem to indicate these artificial substitutes for community are seriously lacking something vitally important. "Trust the science!" is a common chant. Hmmm. Until the facts make us uncomfortable. Or worse. They become a perceived threat. Then what?

• "At one point when children came home from school they changed into their play clothes and played out with friends until mum called them in for dinner."



To fully grasp the importance of once was commonplace eludes us it seems. There was something remarkably valuable about the healthy and creative process of going out in the sunlight and imagining all sorts of ways to interact with our siblings, neighbors, and friends.

For one follow-up question, how badly damaged is that creative spark inherent to us all? While not claiming to fully know the answer, I am personally convinced this and related aspects of our modern obsession (too strong?) with all of our growing array of digital toys (too flippant?) has a lot to do with addressing what you wrote about in the first post I read on your account.

• "...brought up the practice of senicide in many ancient cultures."



Interesting insert into this discussion about community. When communities degrade to the point of arrogantly presuming to make life-and-death decisions for others, I do not know how it can get worse.

• "Size matters"



Absolutely. Are relationships a mile wide and a quarter inch deep (won't take the time to figure metric equivalents ...) genuinely meaningful and life affirming? Asked differently, along the lines of our ongoing discussion, how real are they?

We need to "live life" with others, near and dear, in the real world. I would suggest evidence is mounting, there is no viable substitute.

Okay, that is probably (too much?) plenty.

Thank you for writing this post. I hope there are many more to follow. To civilly, respectfully, but fearlessly challenge some of the everybody knows mindset of our time.

<sub>P.S. Once allowing my daily string of posting to be broken, I have been following through on attempting more balance with how much time I am spending here on Hive. I cannot be true to myself and do otherwise. That said, I will always respond, reply, etc., but it will just likely be a bit slower than might be ideal.

P.P.S. I have the seeds of ideas for 2 or 3 posts, in a certain sequence, which are related to this topic. More narrowly focused on my impressions of the Hive blockchain. I will tag you in them, unless I receive a request otherwise.</sub>