Instinct or Adaptation?

Why are we feeling so alone? Why are we afraid of being lonely?

From the dark ages of history our kinds had found out that living in organised groups insures the survival and so the transmission of genes.
Being part of a group meant not only being protected by enemies but as well to learn and develop new skills in order to insure further on the protection of oneself and of the group. The process is called adaptation. Failing to adapt to the rules of the group you were risking of being outcasted and left without protection of the group. Hence your chances of survival and transmission of genes was decreasing considerably.

In time the relations between humans had developed and became more complex. Beside the adaptation process, that was implying an assimilation mechanism based on learning, other forms of processes that were more subtle were developed and promoted.
These processes were developed at the psychological level of members of a group and were implying more filters for the instinctual feelings of survival of species. Once these psychological barriers or filters were established and developed, a member of a group was less likely to cause death to another member of a group in situations that in the past would have led to this.

It is very likely for laughing to be develop as such barrier. Imagine that a potential conflict situation that might have led to possible fatal injuries would have been simply passed with no violence, if one of the participants or observers at the conflict might have started laughing at the ridiculous situation.
In time these psychological barriers had been translated in a code of morals and it had been transmitted and developed from generation to generation.

Hence larger groups generated in communities, and then in other higher forms of social structures. Moral codes, hierarchies, politeness manners, traditions, customs and so on constituted, and still are, the base of our present societies.

Why are we feeling alone? Because we are alone. By the natural development of our societies we succeeded developing a system in which members of our societies can develop and grow up so that to depend less on others. In our present societies we want and we strive for each of us to reach one’s potential. We want to give the chance to each one of us to develop and discover oneself.

Groups of people are generating uniformisation, the opposite of this is individualisation (see also C.G. Jung)

Of course my explanation is weak to the feelings any of us is trying. The need for care, love, attention, protection, between different individuals are passing beyond dry anthropological explanations.

INDIVIDUALISATION is the prime effect of our development.

I am afraid of being alone. And still we are ultimately alone.