if you're in your mid to late 20s or early 30s and you're reasonably confident that you'll be employed and housed and fed and you have some fun hobbies, you might still feel a kind of restless gnawing emptiness inside you. and you'll try a bunch of stupid shit to make this feeling go away. buying new things, trying new substances, moving to new towns, getting new jobs, getting more expensive hobbies. it might help, but not enough. we need more. we need some real shit.
the major thing you may be missing, the last need unfulfilled, is a community. a community that both benefits from your contributions and will readily help you when you are in need. and that's tough! it's a tall order in the age of the internet-connected smartphone, where social relationships are largely theoretical in the sense that they give very little to you and demand even less in return. just another source of dopamine as needed. you need more than the group chat and the semi-yearly meetup. you need community to be as regular a part of your life as taking out the trash or going grocery shopping. you need people to see you at your very worst. you need to be asked for inconvenient favors at inconvenient times. it's really, really good for you.
a community is not any less necessary if you are insecure in your housing, food, employment, and enrichment btw. but it's a basic need that has been so obfuscated by capitalism and by social media that few people correctly identify this need as unfulfilled, and fewer still are able to meet it. you need to be around other people in real life, in person, regularly. you need to need them, and you need them to need you. not my fault! evolution made you into this type of creature. trying to get by without this will have you as poorly off as if you tried to replace all meals with clif bars or replace your apartment with a monthly storage locker. you need more.
i dont know if you know this but one of the things that made humans set apart from other animals is community, and, more importantly, compassion for each other. community is as innately coded into our DNA as, like, the desire to eat a variety of foods. it is integral. it is the most ancient and compelling part of being the cognizant, social animal that you are. i know it's really hard to see it because modern society puts a LOT of distractions in front of it, but please seek it out. you will grow.
it might be obvious but capitalism is once again responsible for deferring the need for community and trying to make you feel like you don't need it by replacing it with a bunch of lesser things. because capitalism benefits from you feeling lonely and disconnected from each other. a person who can't rely on other people will buy more things impulsively. a person who can't rely on other people will rely on machines and chemicals. we need each other in order to meet our most basic needs in spite of the society around us. we need to move in together and rent apartments/buy houses in the same towns and give each other things to look forward to where we can laugh and eat and be together. we gotta help each other. it's mandatory!
