Hedgehog's Dilemma

As much as the hedgehogs wishing to share their warmth, it's a sad thing that they can't do that without hurting one another, and it's even sadder that this dilemma applies to human beings as well.

In Evangelion, the Human Instrumentality Project is the attempt to force human to evolve and merging each individual into one single entity by removing the barrier between them known as the Absolute-Terror Field(commonly known as AT Field in the show).

This way, there will be no more loneliness and there will not be people hurting each other. As a single supreme entity, human will be like God and be able to achieve things that individuals could never attain.

However with instrumentality, individuality will be lost. Though the negative feelings are wiped out, the positive ones are annihilated as well.

In the end of Evangelion, Shinji rejects Instrumentality and decides to live his life as a separate individual, at the risk of being hurt by others again, probably because he realizes that increasing human potential is only possible by having individuals interact with each other to solve their problems and advance, and that finding a solution to the problems of people hurting each other was the only true way forward.

Instrumentality seemed a good thing, nonetheless, it cannot be achieved. Therefore the only way out for us is to interact and advance. Then the inevitable hurting of one another can be reduced to the minimum.