Lone Illusion?

 Sitting in a coffee store, I feel the diversity of people occupying the same room: the sense of so many different stories and conditioned lives that emerge from those stories. Is it true to say that all these individuals lead separate existences? Or is there a thread running through all stories that allows people to naturally connect, even without saying anything?
   I can say there is definitely a difference between being in a room by myself and being in a room with others. Even if I am not interacting with them directly, there is a felt presence in the room; a kind of bustling, sentient activity. That may not be enough to feel connected to them but it's interesting to contemplate where this overall "sense" of aliveness comes from. Is it coming from the collective experiences of everyone in the room, like a kind of "pooled" energy? Actually, it is really mind itself that is the source  of these energies. There is no "reaching out" to touch or converse with these phenomena at all. It's already present, whether one is talking or drinking, eating or sleeping, observing or not observing.
   I find it so easy to take human energy for granted because of my conditioning to think of humans as people with shared goals. We learn about collaboration and cooperation in schools, which is how humans pool their resources to shared ends. But I bet that few schools recognize an already present sentience that happens when people are together in the same room. This felt sense, if one is aware of it, can create a kind of calm joy. I sense that all the "loneliness" a person feels is actually the striving to go beyond this basic, shared sentience. It is as though a person, forgetting what is already in their skin, were to project that living presence into specific people and then longs to get back what is already theirs.
  What spoils this moment are two distinct things: one is the longing for a specific quality which we attribute to someone else, and the other is a self-consciousness that insists that this body be present to others. This is what leads people in social situations to feel alone and then compelled to somehow strive to cover up that alone feeling through a word, a gesture and a reaching out. But nobody can heal it because that alone feeling is an illusion that is created from a striving and a sense of a separate ego or self. Trying to heal it is like trying to fix a cloud in one place so that it doesn't block the sun.