Oscillating Networks

I wrote yesterday that narratives oscillate. So do our networks. They have lifecycles.

Whatever effort we put in, and no matter how many contacts we may have, the relationship core stays pretty much the same size. The centre - a handful of people we trust and identify with - changes slowly. The next level out, ten to fifteen, we know well and talk with frequently. After that, around a hundred - the people we send Christmas cards to, will always pick up the phone to, who we see less often. After that, it's distant data. 

Today's network will be notably different from the one we had ten years ago and significantly different to the one we had twenty years ago. People leave for various reasons; new ones arrive, our ideas change and develop a form of gravity that pulls people into our orbit and us into theirs. Our networks and our narrative and co-dependent and oscillate in harmony.

It is why we need to pay careful attention to them to keep them healthy. Too little energy, and they will withe…