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Day talk/night talk

Day talk/night talk

Significance

Control of fire and the capacity for cooking led to major anatomical and residential changes for early humans, starting more than a million years ago. However, little is known about what transpired when the day was extended by firelight. Data from the Ju/’hoan hunter-gatherers of southern Africa show major differences between day and night talk. Day talk centered on practicalities and sanctioning gossip; firelit activities centered on conversations that evoked the imagination, helped people remember and understand others in their external networks, healed rifts of the day, and conveyed information about cultural institutions that generate regularity of behavior and corresponding trust. Appetites for firelit settings for intimate conversations and for evening stories remain with us today. (emphasis mine)

– Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen

Being alone is great, loneliness is not

Being alone is great, loneliness is not

“If being, and doing things, alone is increasingly widespread – and stigma-free – then how to make the most of it? A couple of key factors everyone agrees on are finding a healthy balance between solo time and communing with others – and having the ability to choose solitude, rather than being forced to experience it. “The greatest indication of success in time alone is that a person has chosen that space believing that there is something important and meaningful there,” says Hansen, adding that solitude is a “neutral blob of sculpting clay; it can be whatever we mould it into”.

Fittingly, according to McGraw it’s perhaps best to not mould said blob into “lying in bed, vaping and ordering Uber Eats”. Rather, he suggests channelling alone time into creative pursuits and pastimes that tend to blossom in solitude; a walk or a run, people-watching at a cafe, going to a museum and “taking it all in, as fast or slow as you can”. Or how about “sitting in a bath listening to Vivaldi”, he adds more specifically, or taking an online course?”

How being alone can make you happier

Hypernormalization

Hypernormalization

“It’s easy to feel like: ‘Oh, I’m in community because I’m on TikTok,’” she says. But genuine community is about “getting outside and talking to your neighbor and knowing that there’s someone out there that can help you if something really bad goes down,” she says.

“You’re actually out there talking to people, working with people and realizing there are so many good people in the world, too, and maybe feeling less isolated than before,” says Hartmann.

Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real.