I’m understanding relationships to be one of the more intriguing facets of the human experience. Friends, spouses, parents, children, siblings, colleagues, acquaintances, recruiters—various relationships.

The pandemic accentuated my egocentric perception of the world. With social contact being replaced with time for introspection, it was natural for my experience to be fuelled by ego-centric ideas. My stream of consciousness and the voice inside my head are alone. Inside my head is a one-player game, only I’m there. When given enough time alone, I find I can convince myself that socializing is counter-productive, and that mastery of myself is an honest, fulfilling pursuit. I extrapolate the one-player game in my head to the external world.

I think that’s incorrect. It may seem obvious, but here’s a fundamental, first-principle approach to why I convinced myself it’s wrong.

My very inception is the result of a social interaction. For me to possess this stream of consciousness is the result of two people (my parents) engaging socially to produce me.

Therefore, the currency of my consciousness is social. The currency of the human experience is social.

I think we should strive for the correct balance between living life introspectively, and living life in the social domain, with others. We can learn a lot about ourselves through others, and we can learn a lot about others by looking inwards.

I think the beauty lies in the balance.