#124 You Are Alone in a Room Full of Laughter

Something interesting happens when connection gets easy. It gets cheap. And cheap things stop being valued.

For most of human history, you knew people because survival required it. You knew their moods, their burdens, their reliability under pressure. It was inefficient, slow, expensive in time and attention. That inefficiency did something: it made relationships real. You couldn't optimize them away.

Now connection is a feed. Same video, same laugh, same empty afterglow. But here's the trap — the feeling of being with people arrives without any of the substance. And because it feels satisfied, you never do the harder thing. You never learn what your coworker is actually worried about. You never ask.

Efficient connection is a substitute good. And like most substitutes, it satisfies the craving while starving the body.