small rant on our overconnected culture

Hello fellow explorers in community blogging. I actually really love this idea. Just wanted to throw that out there before I make my first contribution.

I've been thinking about community for the past - oh - 8 months. I think ever since the idea of starting this thing called 1BODY. 'Community' was always something that seemed to drive my passion. I always wanted bring people together to be at the forefront. Someone recently gave me some new perspectives on how it comes about as well as how it seems to be perceived in our present day.
In short he said community was the hip thing today. Everyone is connecting here there and everywhere. Our faces are booked and our menial activities marked by the hour. Connecting with people drives a large portion our life(if not all of it).

Another point he said was as much as you may want it, you can't create it. Its a by product of something else. So while it may be a goal, it is only going to happen as a result of another thing. It almost doesn't make sense to say you want to create community. Its always 'created' around something else. I'm still processing these ideas and seeing where I land on them. I wasn't very satisfied with it immediately after the fact. Most probably because I was pretty dead set on creating community.

At this point in time though it has brought me to a place of dissatisfaction. I think I take for granted all the connectivity that is shoved at me today. More often than not I don't cherish the interaction or the opportunity to really share something with someone. It just becomes too easy and overdone. When I think about this I find my mind going to each end of the spectrum. Thinking back to what it possibly was like before the modern world came into being. To when you had to meet with someone face to face. And more often than not that meeting could be made possible because you lived in a close vicinity of one another. Now when I talk about the crazy amount of community and connectivity that is shoved at us today I don't want to limit it to the internet. I think the another major factor in the over abundance is the ability to travel a large distance very quickly. You essentially don't have to do anything within your own immediate (within walking) community. You can always drive that half hour or whatever it is to get somewhere else. This connects us to numerous amounts of communities and groups of people. I think facebook is a huge testament to this. How many "friends" does the average person have?

While this technology has it's obvious advantages and great uses I want to note the problems. The age old metaphor of being spread thin applies I think. Simply put: so many places to go and places to see.

The desire to slow down and in a sense limit where I go and what I do has been on me for a while. I feel like there is some substance to be gained from the 'less is more' mentality.


Do we take the time to pay attention and cherish our interactions? What do you guys think?
Is this a hopeless cause within our culture and age or is there legitimacy in this?