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I'm concerned about the lack of thoughts in my head. I'm not sure where they've gone, hopefully on vacation to an exotic locale, but I'd like them to come back refreshed and abuzz with possibilities.

It seems almost unfathomable, but I think I'm tired of communication. I'm tired of expressing both the easily expressible and the ineffable. Other people should just know what I know without all the effort.

A coworker told me the other day about this article that finds a correlation between monkey brain size and the size of their social circles. It's really helped me to organize people in my mind. While I dislike the inherent dehumanization involved in this, I find my current strategy - or lack there of - to be unsustainable. As it is, I try to recognize everyone's humanity, which reduces everyone to a 1-bit character. Or somewhere in between 1 and 2 bits.

So by totally ignoring the humanity of the vast majority of people I meet, I can save my limited resources for people who are important.

Instead of everyone being an equal friend on Facebook, from Mom and Dad to former and future girlfriends to that guy from 7th period English class, I am falling down the rabbit hole that is Google+, organizing people into circles.

The problem, of course, is the bike tour, where I get paid - and get paid more - to recognize people's humanity. The more I know about someone, the more customized I can make the tour, which leads to more financial rewards. Which especially sucks when I work hard to recognize someone's humanity and then get stiffed.

Then there are tragedies like Norway. I know cerebrally how terrible it is but keep it from really sinking in. I don't think most people have the capacity to process such savagery from around the world on a daily basis. 80 people is already half way to 150, the theoretical max for our social circle - our Monkeysphere. I hesitate but want to call it a "tribe".

I also liked that the article talked about "grooming cliques," which are only a couple of monkeys. I would like a grooming clique of a handful of people with whom I'm really close. Not all physical affection has to be sexual. I think our society has this black and white attitude - sex or non-physical - and it creates this arbitrary distance between people.

I started this post to tell you how there's nothing in my head these days, but then all this came out - granted it's not very well organized or particularly interesting. At least I tapped into something; I'm just terribly out of practice.