Escaping The Human Pyramid

There is a pyramid of bodies, each one clawing, climbing and grasping through the others to get to the top. Having reached the top, the reigning body stretches out for a minute before being knocked to the side and displaced by the next up-and-comer. Then the process begins again. This has always been the nature of social structures, which I define as groups of more than two. Two people can live together as a mutually reinforcing couple, symbiotically in tune with the platonic and/or erotic fluctuations of the other. Once a third party is introduced a small-scale pyramid begins, and the clawing-climbing-grasping process is almost inevitably set in motion. The degree to which this occurs certainly depends on the quality of the people involved, but the chances are increased by quantity. The bigger the group the higher the potential reward at the top of the pyramid, and thus the nastier the process is likely to get. This even though the potential reward is ephemeral, and most time at the top is spent warding off overly zealous aspiring successors.

This is why I don't particularly desire leadership roles or like large groups of people. On an individual level most people are fine or even pleasurable, but when that third number is introduced so is the struggle not to be the odd man out and hit the dreaded bottom. I realize the practical necessity of some social pyramids, but I like these voluntary associations to be loose and transient, forming and reforming before leadership tensions begin to simmer. Drink can be a good lubricant to loosen these inherent tensions, but it can also lead to the spill that causes the pyramid to topple. That edge of uncertainty is part of drinking's appeal and why it is the prefered activity of large groups. One needs an element of danger even when it is domesticated (or domestic beer) and relegated to weekends. I perceive the game when I drink and enjoy it on the ludic level, but otherwise a one-on-one relationship is necessary for my sanity's sake. I don't like social games when I'm sober (which is most of the time), I don't like the artifice and oneupsmanship and territorial pissings involved.

Like a lot of people, high school proved for me to be a wonderfully horrible learning process in this regard. I'm always suspicious of anyone who enjoyed their high school experience. High school is when social pyramids are first built in earnest, without the layers of etiquette and ritual to soften the blows of being knocked around. To be outside of the pyramid is, to extend the metaphor, to be lost in the desert. The concept of a spiritually peaceful monastic life in this desert usually has yet to enter the mind. Instead it is a mad scramble for the top of the pyramid, or at least not to be on the bottom. I haven't really had a "group of friends" since high school and I'm rather content with that. I have individual friends in varied locations and know enough people to enjoy the ludic dimensions of the pyramid on alcohol holidays. There's a reason monogamy is the standard social practice in most societies. Polyamory is a pyramid of bodies with the combustible addition of sex and its associated lubricants. This greater erotic edge of uncertainty certainly has its visceral appeal, but makes total collapse almost certain. Monogamy is more reliable, for worse and better. That solitude plus one is all I desire right now.