In the course of our lives, humans on average encounter or have meaningful exchanges with about 80,000 other humans. At any given time we can sustain stable relationships with about 150 people in sort of a circle of people "in our lives". This is called Dunbar's number and it has to do with the architecture of our brains. Simply, 150 people is what we can manage under optimal circumstances. If you ever wonder why people drift away even when we enjoy and cherish that person – it's at least in part because if either party has too many other people they have to prioritize in daily, someone has to go.
Interestingly, Dunbar's number also holds true for our closest cousins – Chimpanzees and Bonobos. Their bands support a maximum number of 150 before their shrewdnesses (the term for a group of chimpanzees) and troops (bonobos) will divide into smaller groups – often marked with some kind of internal fight or "civil war".
I frequently struggle to comprehend how populations relate to economies and infrastructure. For example, Singapore has a slightly higher per capita GDP than Washington State while it has about 2 million fewer people, 0.4% (less than 1% to be perfectly clear) the land and the considerably higher cost of maintaining its own national defense and diplomacy. Or Greece's entire population is about eight million fewer than the Greater Los Angeles Area's. Yet Greece has most of the same "stuff" as our country and amazingly maintains the full working logistics of its 227 inhabited islands. Supplying gas stations throughout the San Fernando Valley is infinitely easier and cheaper than supplying gas to the Greek isles.
Patmos' year-round population is about 3,000 people – occupying the two towns of Skala and Hora – and other areas dotting the island from farms in the island's extreme north, south and hidden "Central Valley" to beach coves like Sapsila and Kampos. And there's that guy with the little house and goats on the tiny island off Petra Beach. There aren't that many more people living on Patmos than there were in my high school.
I'm frequently fascinated by the web of relationships here on Patmos and to what degree they validate - or not – Dunbar's number. If not everyone knows each other well, they certainly seem to be able to largely identify one another. Moreover, given the extensive network of family relationships, I would wager their circles of awareness are considerably higher than in my high school. Anyone who goes to the gym knows Coach Thanasis' family. But a large number of people who never set foot in the gym are likely to be closely too moderately related to him or friends with his parents or grandparents. On Patmos, there can't be more than two degrees of separation – which wears away at Dunbar's number.
Certain venues bring this into sharp relief. Kris' barber shop in the town square is one. Like a lot of traditional, small town barber shops there are gatherings of men hanging out and talking who aren't even getting haircuts. Kris is a hub of information and might well know which kids need to buckle down on their algebra homework and whose marriages are struggling.
Yesterday, hanging out at Prokopis' hardware shop, I discovered he too is a nexus of social information. Having the closest thing to a Home Depot on the island, people flow in and out of his shop – ranging from experienced tradespeople to visitors needing to repair something on their yachts in port. Locals and foreigners alike line up to ask questions and get help from Prokopis and his twenty-something son who give everyone their full attention when it's their turn. Similar to Kris' barber shop, a few customers hang out longer than they really need shooting the shit with Prokopis or each other.
What makes Prokopis' shop so much funnier than Kris' is that being "Australian-made with Greek parts" as he says, Prokopis spends his days flitting between languages – mostly Greek and English but apparently he speaks decent German and Swedish too. Accordingly, he's able to create solid connections with local and foreign customers alike – understanding them culturally as well as linguistically. When he talks to himself as he does things like mix paint or cut rope, he frequently mixes languages fluidly within a sentence. At one point he was mixing my paint and muttering something in Greek for the benefit of Mohammad whose Greek is much stronger than his English and then said, "Fuck me dead!" as something went wrong.
Like Kris, Prokopis' circle must extend well beyond 150. He knows so many people on the island that when I wanted to tell him a funny story and asked, "So you know Nicholas Kamitses?" Prokopis answered, "Which one? There are at least four."
At home, I don't think I live up to my 150 person capacity very well. Some days, in an off moment when putting away the dishes or taking a shower or heading to yoga someone I love pops into my head. I realize how long it's been since I talked to that person, let alone saw or spent time with them. Relationships are watered with shared time and experiences and realize my garden isn't well tended. For better and worse, the people around me get the most time and attention, while there are often people who occupy a larger place in my heart I feel drifting away. Whenever I have one of these realizations, I try to reach out – even if it's just a text – to try to keep the currents of time and circumstances pull us apart permanently and to let that person know they still mean something to me – they're in my heart.
The grass is always greener on the other side and it may well be that Patmians feel overwhelmed with the weight and invasiveness of their relationships. The flip side of being known is people knowing and caring about your business. Maybe people just crave some anonymity or privacy sometimes. I'm sure that happens. In the hard moments of life, some of us want to be surrounded by people who care and some need space – or some measure of alternation between these things.
However, an increasing body of work across multiple disciplines including psychology and sociology show humans do best in community. We benefit from being together – not in the sense of head-counts, because dense cities can be someone of the loneliest places – but in the web of relationships we maintain. Someone at their max 150 relationships, of which five of those are close "inner circle" people are more likely to be fulfilled whatever their socioeconomic status than someone who is materially well-off, but with fewer connections and relationships.
On a more micro level, everyone just craves being "seen" – or getting "the bright eyes" as the couples' therapist Emily and I saw put it. The bright eyes is that look you get from someone who genuinely takes delight in seeing you. Ideally, you got this from your parent or primary caretaker from birth – and the truth is it's "the good stuff". We don't mind it from anyone, really. People who are present for others are often some of the most loved and celebrated people in their circles – because they give the bright eyes, they see people and it fills the cups of those around them. I've been fortunate enough to know several people who naturally give themselves to the people they're around – who hold other people dearly and with wonder. Ironically, those are the people who get held the most dearly in return.
Realistically, we can't all be those people – at least not for everyone, all the time. But what if social norms forced your hand to be more attuned to your community? Your well being is more tied to your community standing. On an island like Patmos that seems likely. Or maybe the reverse happens too? With less competition for resources like housing and jobs – and fewer competing priorities, it's easier to be present to others. Maybe people simply have more room in life for a real conversation with a neighbor - or time to go visit a grieving friend or sick cousin? With fewer people, maybe each one occupies more space in one's consciousness than is possible in Los Angeles or New York? It strikes me that survival on an island requires a population that can come together – so cohesion is all the more important because the first line of defense against a natural disaster or invasion is one another.
Prokopis brought this up yesterday. Apparently, all adult males on Patmos are required to have a rifle and 200 rounds in their possession. Once or twice a year, they are all required to report to the tiny military base on the hill heading toward Agriolivadi to report for reserve training. In other words, there aren't enough soldiers stationed on the island to defend itself (I suppose against Turkish attack ?). So the islanders have to be part of their own – and the national – defense.
"But with all these guns, they are never used. No one shoots his girlfriend when they fight or breakup. No one shoots their family or opens fire on a school. Why does this happen in America? It's not the guns themselves."
True.
"It's a social disease," I told him. "The fact that people who do this have access to semi-automatic weapons only intensifies how many children in a school or how many concert-goers they can mow down. I don't think people need that kind of firepower. But you're right that we didn't have this problem 20 years ago. There's an illness in our society. I worry about my kids in school. It makes you miss the days when hypodermic needs on the shore were our worst problem…."
I told him our kids' elementary school – the school I went to – is building a fence around campus when it used to be open to be neighborhood. He simply looked at me and nodded as if to say, "Of course that's your solution….."
