9 Comments

This is wonderful. These days after quitting all social media platforms except Twitter, I realize that it is hard for me to reach out to people because they are sucked into the abyss of instant gratification. I am trying to rescue them one by one. I will share this with them and hope they wake up!

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I wait eagerly for this weekly balm of support. Again, sharing far and wide. Thank you Heather.

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Aug 24, 2021Liked by Heather Heying

Reading this while outside. Both thanks to you.

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The question is sometimes posed, What is your life's purpose?

For me, the only answer has always been to nurture relationships, to make connections, to create interwoven webs of support.

The way i have found to do that is to love, which is to care enough about someone else that you enhance their life in some way.

Heather, thank you, as usual, for your perspective. Sharing your views, here and in your videos with Bret, enhances my life. The combination of your intellect and your caring love is an immensely attractive synergy. İ find myself wishing sometimes that we were friends.

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Well said. This kind of reminds me of this comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/life-tip-2

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I enjoyed this a lot, thank you Heather. It resonates with Mark Boyle's point: life is a balance between comfort and aliveness - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZiT9vhPX6Y

Interesting reflections on friendship too. My closest friend insisted years ago we live close to each other and I am forever grateful for this as we come to middle age. We now have the kind of easy day-to-day contact that is so rare in our hyper mobile, hyper mediated worlds.

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How did the bonobos seemingly get it right or am I hust being wistful?

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Thanks for this. I couldn't help but reflect on my own friendships and wonder about where they have thrived and where they have withered. It seems it might be rooted in where the friendship was made and not about who the person is. I'll think about that some more. I enjoy your content.

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Contemporary stuff that makes good parenting difficult (increasingly having to work longer hours and accomplish more during them to maintain a lifestyle, for example) might also make it thrice as hard for folks to form lasting, genuine friendships.

It seems to many of us that there is so much opportunity cost in time, energy, attention spent on anyone who doesn’t stand a chance of upping your economic viability that VIPs are the only ones worth the effort; you may in fact have to cut off longstanding relationships with people who aren’t helping you “grow,” advance, optimize (and this sort of decision is viewed as a positive, strong move, an "adult decision").

Any public-facing behavior not delivered by way of an affective persona is perceived as “awkward.” All this really means, I think, is that we are allergic to frankness-out-in-the-open. We either keep an inner circle—1 or 2 people we let our guards down with—or we don’t have anybody and try to supplement with the internet.

I think your admonishment to “... reschool our happiness-seeking circuitry, train it to find and appreciate legitimately rare or valuable things.” is a beautiful, sound message. Just seems to be getting trickier and trickier to pull off. But maybe continually figuring this out will be our version of finding meaning in basic Darwinian goals.

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