Building Your Life for Community
What is community for? Have we forgotten, and is it even possible to forget?
The tweet below is essentially the thesis for this post, and possibly for this newsletter.
From Seattle to NYC
I just got back from a two-week trip to Seattle.
While there, I stayed with my buddy Steve. Steve lives in the suburbs of Seattle with his mom, and his 11 year-old son.
I really cherished the time I got to spend with them. We cooked together, made bread together, watched movies. Steve and I played a bunch of music together–we had a band wayyy back in the day. Me, Steve, and Steve’s son kicked the soccer ball around a couple times.
I didn’t realize how isolated I’ve been for the past few months, just spending day after day alone in my apartment. It’s a bit of a habitual pattern for me.
Being around Steve and his family helped me feel like myself again. Honestly, I didn’t want to leave. It was hard to come back to NYC.
These feelings inspired the following tweet:
Here are some of the responses:
Depression Is a Loss of Connection
In his book Lost Connections, journalist Johann Hari argues that depression is essentially a loss of connection.
This tracks. My connections in NYC are few, and I spend most of my week in total isolation. I work as a freelance writer, and I find much easier to write without anyone else around. It does beget a lifestyle that is, shall we say, “rich” in isolation.
I’ve gotten into this rut in NYC where my typical workday goes something like this: walk to get coffee in the morning, work, grab, a sandwich for lunch, and occasionally go to the laundromat or the grocery store.
After work, I see my girlfriend a couple times per week and skate with a buddy usually once per week.
I’m not ashamed to admit that for the past few months I have been lonely.
Apparently, there’s a loneliness epidemic happening in this country, and it seems to be getting worse.
I want to take care of others, and I want there to be others who take care of me.
This daily routine I describe above(that is the source of this feeling) exists because I feel like I need to work harder so that I can have some financial security.
I work from home, doing freelance writing, and writing this newsletter. Feels like my workload is endless, yet I never make real material progress, i.e. my pay never increases, and I’m never afforded time off.
I’m not sure it will ever be enough, at least in NYC.
If housing was cheaper, I could afford myself some slack.
The reality is that housing is probably never going to get cheaper, especially in NYC. The real estate and developer lobbies are too strong, and they have NYC and NY state wrapped around their finger. I expect NYC to continue to elect cop- and billionaire-mayors for the foreseeable future. I would not bet on things getting better here.
As I’ve talked about in previous posts here, I think it’s time for me to leave NYC for a third and final time.
Ultimately, it’s because of housing–both the expense, and the lack of availability.
I came across this tweet this week:
These three replies sum up my feelings in response to the prompt.
It’s this “survival mode” feeling that makes me feel like the path for me is to leave NYC and to find a living situation where I can “live in community” and I don’t feel like I’m in “survival mode”.
I’d like to acknowledge that this idea of “living in community” is a white, Christian idea. The “Back to Land” movement–very different from the Land Back movement–was white af.
Class is an element too. The rich are already preparing for collapse. Tech workers with “HENRY” salaries have been buying land in the country for some time now.
But we must not ignore that reality that the history of America is a history of genocide and settler-colonialism. Additionally, rural America has been pushed towards right-wing extremism since the 80’s, as told in this post by John Ganz, in his Substack, Unpopular Front.
For those used to living in cities, Rural America can be a scary place, especially if you are non-white and/or queer-identifying.
If and when I start a land project, I want it to be a place that is safe and truly diverse. I’d like it to be a place where we confront America’s history of genocide and settler-colonialism, and live values aligned with confronting these things.
How Do You Know Who to Trust?
Here’s the ideal, in any environment, city or rural.
Building a team takes time. I feel like I’ve tried to do that numerous times in NYC, and have mostly failed.
Probably the closest I got to “building a team” was starting a weekly crypto meetup in Ridgewood.
I started it in August 2021, but got burnt out from hosting the event around May 2022.
I made some good friends from hosting the event, but ultimately got burnt out on hosting and talking about web3 every week, especially after working for a web3 DAO tooling company from Nov. 2021 to June 2022.
Friends run the event now. Overall, I’m glad for the connections I made, and that it’s still going on. It feels like a success.
I’ve come to the realization that I don’t think crypto will save us all. I still work in crypto, primarily as a content writer for Gitcoin, and I believe in the work we’re doing at GitcoinDAO.
In my own life, it seems more urgent to focus on being resilient, in preparation for the hard times ahead.
That means getting out to some land, and learning how to survive interdependently, doing what I would call, a “group self-sufficiency”.
Here’s a tweet that clicked for me this week, re: homesteading and how to think about it.
Ultimately, It’s About Responsibility
Guiding questions are an excellent mechanism/psychotechnology for this age. Many people I talk to feel lost. I feel a bit lost sometimes myself.
Here’s a question that I’m pondering this week:
I don’t have answer to this question right now.
I guess my answer right now is, “I feel responsible for myself”.
I want to take responsibility for my safety, longevity, and happiness, and that means finding a way to own or co-steward some land.
Knowing that I can depend on the people around me, and that we are invested and working towards growing our own food, and other practices of autonomy, resiliency, and interdependence would help me feel safer, happier, and more content.
It’s my belief that growing your own food, and living on land that you own is going to become more important as the cost of living continues to rise.
It’s hard to imagine housing costs, food costs, and medical care increasing even more, but at this point it seems inevitable.
I’d recommend starting to make more small bets in growing your own food, and buying land, either for yourself and family, or with a group of friends.
Here’s another tweet that’s been living in my head, perhaps fodder for a future post, though I am far from an expert on the topic.
I’m currently working on an outline for a “small bets playbook”. If you’re interested in contributing, leave a comment or dm me on Twitter. Once I have a doc going, I’ll link to it here.
P.S. I’ll leave you with this tweet ❣️