{"id":37922,"date":"2021-03-29T15:50:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T15:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=37922"},"modified":"2021-03-29T15:50:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T15:50:52","slug":"finding-comfort-in-chaos-the-unexpected-liberty-of-feeling-lost-in-the-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/finding-comfort-in-chaos-the-unexpected-liberty-of-feeling-lost-in-the-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Comfort in Chaos: The Unexpected Liberty of Feeling Lost in the Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Realistic oil paintings by Kathleen Beausoleil highlight the all-too human need to feel at once accepted and anonymous.<\/em> Individuals like to think about themselves as conspicuously unique personalities. Take a look closer, however, and it\u2019s pretty clear that we are deeply social animals, biologically programmed for social interaction and territorial behavior. Even our individual expressions only appear to be acceptable or distasteful within the context of a larger community of organized and accepted social norms. Outside of the inner circle of our families and perhaps excluding celebrities and the famous or infamous, most people\u2019s social lives are played out in relative anonymity. There\u2019s a sense of liberty in anonymity, a safety in getting lost in the crowd, but there\u2019s no escape from the unspoken social obligations of any society. This is especially true of social interactions that are part of gatherings to celebrate a common purpose. In these situations, the condition, obligations and consequences of our social contract can often appear to be arbitrary. However, under the seeming chaos of any undulating crowd, or protest movement or a day at the ballpark rooting for the home team, there is a basic human psychology at work. Depending on the social norms of the population, the resulting outcome can often be predictable, although sometimes very surprising. How people behave in public is very telling about the culture they live in and observing these behaviors can help illuminate a better understanding of our place in that culture. So, it is important to sometimes step outside our own cultural norms and observe how people interact and enact the complicated choreography of mass gatherings. It\u2019s been my personal observational experience that people need other people to be happy and accepted and fulfilled. They also need other people to project their grievances and rally around a common enemy. It\u2019s a sense of belonging that people seek. Both in our microcosmic home lives and within our macrocosmic social lives. As social animals, we tend to find joy and meaning in the sense of belonging to something larger than just ourselves. We are reassured and informed by the echoes of our personal scruples in the voice of our larger tribal identities.
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