Whenever I look at this photo I think of the phenomenon of bars or restaurants on the same street where one will be crowded and another virtually empty. The place I noticed that most was in Aix en Provence, along the Cours Mirabeau. It wasn’t even that one bar was awful so always empty. The crowds would move over a number of months, deserting the popular one to make a less popular one now THE place to be!
Maybe you’ve had a similar experience on holiday checking out the options for a place to eat. The really busy place exerts a pull, and those waiters hanging around outside the empty restaurant aren’t tempting.
Part of the explanation for this is the social instinct we humans possess (and other creatures, including these guys on this rock have it too). We are born with a drive to make connections. We have to bond to a carer to survive. In fact the social instinct is so strong in human beings that it surprises me that competitiveness is thought to play such an important role in development.
The other thing I think of when I look at this photo is the passage from T S Eliot’s The Rock –
When the Stranger says: “What is the meaning of this city ?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?”
What will you answer? “We all dwell together
To make money from each other”? or “This is a community”?
Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
Why do we congregate to form such large cities? Well, the social instinct is surely one of the factors. And here’s the thing, this instinct seems to operate primarily below the level of our awareness. Much of the time we don’t realise the power it is exerting over our choices and actions.
Heroes Not Zombies 
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