The Problem of Scarcity in Human Relationships
Concern is also a limited resource
Among the most basic principles of economics is what is commonly called the problem of scarcity: the supply of resources is limited, but the desires of consumers are not. I understand this when I see nation-states competing for access to fossil fuels, fresh water, and rare earth materials. My three-year-old understands it when he is forced to wait for another child to go down the lone slide on the playground. Our material world is a place in which we are constantly limited by finite time and space, even as the longings within us take on infinite proportions.
I was still a child when I realized how the problem of scarcity applies to human relationships. I had a wonderful friend with whom I loved to play. She was so wonderful, in fact, that she had many other friends. There were times when I wanted to do some activity with her, only to find that she was already committed to play with someone else. It occurred to me that, while I had a small number of friends to whom I gave my time and attention, she had a far greater number: so many, in fact, that it would be difficult for me to ever form a friendship with her as close as I desired.
What I understood at a young age I now see at a more extreme level as an adult. I have had the opportunity to become acquainted with people who are, in their own segments of society, quite well-known. Of course, many of the prominent persons I have contacted for professional or personal reasons have ignored me completely, but some have responded in a kind and helpful manner. Those occasions have been rather exciting. Getting to know a respected individual usually is.
However, I have also felt embarrassed in those situations. “Do they really have time to talk to me?” I wonder. “Am I simply a nuisance?” I read about the many things keeping them busy and worry that the five minutes they spend writing an email to me is five minutes they are not spending with their family, or reading for pleasure, or simply getting some much-needed rest. Inevitably, these communications cannot develop into close friendships, because the persons in question have so many demands upon their persons, they have little or nothing to give me. Indeed, they have little to give to anyone, so thinly is their good will spread.
Let us consider a more extreme example. We have just witnessed the coronation of King Charles III of England. Thousands of people poured into the streets of London to declare their admiration for him, and he speaks often of his concern for all of his fans vassals people. But that crowd to which he waved on The Mall was not made up of close friends. It was a twisting mass of anonymity: a sea of faces he will never know. He cannot possibly produce for each of his subjects the kind of emotional outpouring they lavish on him, which depends on knowing something about the subject of one’s adoration. They can all show love to him in a way that he could never love each of the 67 million persons in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to say nothing of the other realms over which he rules.
From the least of us to the greatest, the problem of scarcity means we will always desire more affection, time, and thoughtfulness from others than they can possibly give us.
If human beings are creatures of worth, deserving of dignity and regard, then each of us has a duty to grant our concern to every other human being. Nearly everyone agrees that a person deserves to be loved and to know that love. We feel within ourselves the desire to be treated that way, yet we are limited in terms of time, energy, and mental capacity. To spend as much concern on every human being as we do on those closest to us would destroy us mentally and emotionally. When I begin to think of all the persons on earth who are hungry, imprisoned, terrified, and abused, I quickly find myself overwhelmed, unable to bear the weight of all that pain.
Why do we desire a degree of concern that no one can possibly grant us? Even my husband cannot give me the kind of attention for which I yearn, not because he is setting some other woman before me, but because he grows tired, must devote his time to work, or must see to the needs of others. He is a creature of limitations, just like me. I desire a love unlimited in scope and expression, but I cannot possibly give such love and will never receive it from another human being. Only an infinite being could provide an infinite love, not only to me, but to every person who exists.
This brings me to another thought that bothered me even in childhood. When I prayed to God, I wondered how he could really be paying attention to what I was saying, absorbing every word of it, and giving it all his energies of concern when so many others were offering up prayers simultaneously. I knew human beings reserve the greatest degree of love for those closest to them. How could that many people all be close to God? How could he love them all not only equally, but infinitely?
I see with age that this is possible not only because God is so intelligent and unbound by space that he can comprehend millions of prayers all occurring at once, but because his love is so infinite that when he grants some to one person, it does not decrease the amount on hand to grant to someone else. When Jesus Christ gave himself for mankind, he did not offer one little portion of himself to each person who would place their trust in him, but gave all of himself to every believer. His human nature has limits, but his divinity does not.
Perhaps the longing I have always felt to be at the center of a person’s love, to feel the fullness of it without interruption or limitation, is actually a longing for the love of God, which never waxes or wanes and is given to every person freely and fully. We cannot truly love our fellow humans as God loves us. Our efforts will always come up short, for we can never know them all as they deserve. But the infinite God can both know and love each of us infinitely, never favoring one over the other, never denying something to one that has already been given to another.
The problem of scarcity in terms of relationships is therefore solved by the incarnation of Jesus Christ, who by uniting himself with human beings gave each one the fullness of God’s love. That is something far beyond my ability to comprehend, but I sense it has the power to satisfy the deepest longings within me.