{"id":4542,"date":"2021-01-24T23:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-24T23:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=4542"},"modified":"2022-01-25T21:26:55","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T21:26:55","slug":"people-who-need-people-and-the-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/people-who-need-people-and-the-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"People Who Need People \u2014 and the COVID-19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

A song from the Sixties has been on my brain’s Top 40 Golden Oldie Earworm list for the last week or so:<\/p>\n

“People,
\nPeople who need people,
\nAre the luckiest people in the world….”
\n(“People<\/a>;” Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill (1964))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That started me thinking. Are people who need people lucky? Should they be lucky? Just what is luck, anyway? And for that matter, are there any people who don’t<\/strong> need people?<\/p>\n

Thoroughly answering any one of those questions would take a book. A whole lot of books, more likely.<\/p>\n

I’m trying to keep these ‘journal’ entries short, so thorough is out, superficial is in.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Human, Yes \u2014 All Alike, No<\/h4>\n

<\/a>I’m not one of those folks who likes getting together with a few hundred close personal friends every other day or so.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I like people just fine.<\/p>\n

But trying to have a coherent conversation with a varying number of people, while sorting other conversations into categories like ‘ignore,’ ‘engage later,’ ‘engage now’ and ‘switch to other group’ ???<\/p>\n

That is not my idea of a good time.<\/p>\n

And I’m certainly not someone who starts going through social withdrawal after maybe three days without at least a few hours in a crowded room.<\/p>\n

But I’m human. We’re social critters. “Needing people” comes with the territory.<\/p>\n

I can sympathize with folks who really do need people: people who are physically close, not ‘close’ only in a virtual sense. I’m also willing to accept that not everyone is like me. For which we should all be thankful. And that’s another topic.<\/p>\n

That said, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions haven’t cut into my social life all that much.<\/p>\n

Before ‘social distancing’ \u2014 a poorly-chosen phrase, and that’s yet another topic \u2014 started becoming a cliche, most of my social life was online.<\/p>\n

It still is.<\/p>\n

If I thought that online communities were “pretend communities” and folks weren’t real people when they connect with each other through post-industrial tech \u2014<\/p>\n

Well, I don’t. And I’m pretty sure that I’m a real person, even when I socialize online.<\/p>\n

I’ve talked about that, and other seemingly-obvious stuff, before:<\/p>\n