Connection means there must also be an opposite – separation or maybe even rejection. Connection is not just a place to belong, be accepted, or have a group to be a part of. As an evolutionary instinct, connection means survival. Tribally, we needed to assimilate our survival instincts, don’t eat that fruit, listen for certain sounds in the wild, hunt, gather. Social norms to prevent misunderstandings. Individual responsibilities to support the tribe. Familial norms to grow and nurture children and propagate. Hierarchy to maintain order and function and maybe the most crucial assimilation, communication and language.
If any of these conformities were not followed it could have threatened the survival of the tribe. The assimilation is stimulated by the connection or enforced by the threat of rejection and separation. Under this scenario if anyone was castigated, alone in the wilderness trying to survive on their own, that could mean literal death.
We have since outgrown the need for primitive survival instincts. But the instinctual equivalency of separation and rejection equating death is still deep. Intellectually we can understand being rejected by any group does not mean death but instinctually we feel the knot in our stomach, the anxiety, stress, fear of doing something “wrong” that might make us feel or seen as different, rejected and separated. Even whether the group wouldn’t do that or not make you feel that way, we have an instinct to not want to potentially be rejected.
Sometimes in order to protect ourselves we resort to an opposite reaction of individualism to save us from that feeling or detriment. But is individualism the answer? I don’t think so. Individualism has its own shortfalls as well. But I think we need both, both have its strengths, we are better with a strong sense of both. We should to practice how to be good at both.