Do you want to be all you can be? Or do you just want to live up to part of
your potential, rather than all of it?

Think about that before you read on. Decide on a serious answer, and decide
why you chose that answer.

A common theme in my writings, conversations, and thoughts is the rejection
of the common notions surrounding human socialization. I general, I oppose
gratuitous socialization, spending time chatting with other people and doing
nothing else, simply because you enjoy doing so. I have been this way for
several years now; Many people have called me "antisocial", a word which
seems to have negative connotations, for reasons I do not understand. But I
must admit that in my earlier life, I too loved to socialize, and it was a
focal goal in my life to simply be with other people just because it was fun
to do so. Why have I so fundamentally changed?

The change arose from realizations I made about people who routinely "hang
out" with others, as opposed to those who are more introverted and private.
Quite simply, I could not help but realize that the smartest people seemed to
be the ones who spent the least time with other people, while the least
intelligent or informed folks were the ones who spent almost all their waking
hours partying or "having a good time". People who were socially popular, who
had a lot of friends who they spent a lot of time catching up with, spent so
much time socializing that they had little time for anything else. That, of
course, was perfectly fine to them, since in many cases, "hanging with
friends" was and is the most important thing in life for them.

But I have arrived at what seems to be an inevitable conclusion. The more
prominence your social life has in your entire life, the less time you have
for other things. To put it another way: The more a person socializes, the
stupider that person will be.

That may sound ridiculous or far-fetched, but it makes perfect sense (to my
mind at least) if you think about it for a moment. Where does a person gain
knowledge? From study. This can be the study of books or other forms of
media, but wherever it comes from, education has to come from somewhere. It
does not enter a person's head by magic, and it does not come simply with
age; A person does not get wiser as they get older unless they learn. That
means that for a person to be wise, they must actively study to become so.
(Granted, wisdom is more than pure academic knowledge, but it is difficult to
be wise without education.) If a person is busy doing something other than
learning, where will they gain their knowledge? The more a person talks to
others about casual subjects, the dumber they will be.

This is obviously a broad generalization. Certainly, people even in casual
conversations often talk about intelligent, meaningful things, and it is very
possible to learn interesting or useful things in a simple coffee chat with a
friend. However, the ratio of important conversation to idle chatter is
usually pretty low in everyday conversation. Generally, people do not learn
much about the world when they go out together to have a good time.

As with so many questions like this, it boils down to the issue of what you
want your life to be. This comes back to the question I asked at the
beginning: Do you want to be all that you can possibly be, or only fulfill
part of your potential?

For most people, spending time with others is not just something that happens
by accident; It's a fundamental part of life, like breathing or eating.
Humans are social animals, made to construct communities. As such, it seems
logical that people would be fulfilling the meaning of life simply by
enjoying themselves, being together and enjoying each other's company.

On the other hand, there are those (myself among them) who believe that
mankind should do more with their lives than simply exist and enjoy. Such
people believe that humans live for a *reason*.

But to fulfill the purpose of your life, you must strive toward it. You must
act upon your ambitions, your hopes, and your dreams if you ever wish to turn
them into reality. And that's where the question comes in: To maximize your
chances of realizing that potential, you must strive for it at every moment
of your life. To be the very best you can be, everything you do must be
calculated and planned. When you simply spend your time idly by doing nothing
or relaxing for relaxing's sake, you are saying, loud and clear, "I don't
want to reach my fullest potential". If you spend an hour relaxing with your
friends, it is an hour that you can never get back. You could have spent that
time learning something new; You could have learned how to drill for oil. You
could have studied ancient Egyptian culture. You could have done any number
of more enriching things.

This creates a quandary: How much time should we spend with friends, and how
often? And how much time should we spend trying to improve ourselves? The
answer can only come from you. Every person must make these decisions for
themselves, for their own life.

I am not rigorously against being with other people. If you are a stranger
and I happen to meet you through chance, I will be polite to you. I may even
stop to talk with you for a few minutes if I am not in a particular hurry to
do something else. I believe that people were meant to spend at least some
degree of time socializing.

But to what degree? 5 percent of life? 10 percent? More? Less? Again, the
answer is different for everyone. I am not opposed to socialization, in
moderation. To spend time talking to other people--whether they are family,
neighbours, co-workers, or complete strangers--is healthy and good. However,
I have a problem when pure, gratuitous congregation for its own sake becomes
an important part of life. I just don't see much value in spending an entire
evening doing nothing but talking to other people about nothing in
particular; As the saying goes, to have nothing to say, but to say it anyway.

If you've never thought about it before, there's no time like right now to
decide what you want your life to be. If you honestly believe that when you
die, you'll be able to look back on your life and feel that you've satisfied
with how you lived, then you may be on the right track. If not, there's no
better time than now to make your life what you want it to be. Live how you
want to live, not how others believe you should live. In the end, it will
have been worth it.