bhaskar saikia

I often feel that human population is inversely related to human affection. The more we multiply, the less we seem to care.

In smaller communities, affection once flowed naturally — people knew each other’s names, faces, and stories. Bonds were woven through shared struggles, laughter, and survival. Humanity felt closer, not just in proximity but in heart.

But as cities grew and lives became crowded, affection started thinning out like mist in a noisy street. We see hundreds of faces every day, yet barely look into anyone’s eyes. The digital age promised connection, but what it really delivered is a constant hum of communication without communion.

Perhaps it’s not that we’ve become heartless, but that we’ve become overwhelmed. In a world overflowing with people, it’s easier to turn inward, to conserve emotion like a resource running dry. Love becomes selective. Compassion becomes conditional. We choose where to place our attention, often guided not by warmth but by convenience.

Maybe that’s the quiet tragedy of modern life — that as our species thrives in number, our tenderness becomes rarer. Humanity, it seems, is crowding itself out of affection.