Humans fight entropy by constantly attending to themselves—a survival instinct by checking our health and well-being.
This spills into endless self-focus: how we’re doing, fitting in, remembering, and fantasizing. It builds identity and worth… but what is our cosmic significance?
Rather than being “OK” after our self-attendance, we also insist on mattering to others. All this expended self-attentional energy demands externalized reciprocation, so we can finally justify our costly existence.
We are our own greatest overhead.