On Community (Part 2)

The “how to save it” part

Hey everyone,

Quick note: I just finished a Tibetan Buddhist meditation retreat in LA. I’m hoping to write a separate article about it soon. In the meantime, I’ll be sticking around LA until the end of March. Let me know if you’re in the area and want to meet up! 

emerging from yurt life (my home last week)

Okay, let’s jump into Part 2 of the community series. 

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In my last post, I talked about how friendships and community often erode in adulthood.

In this post, I’ll explore ways we can reverse this trend. I’m certainly no expert, but these are the ten strategies I’m trying out this year to rebuild strong relationships and community.

Even though they’re framed as advice, they’re really notes to myself. I hope you find them helpful. 

1. Be ambitious about your personal life – When I think of ambition, I think of my career. But this year, I’m trying to be more ambitious about my personal life. I’ve realized that relationships, like a profession, require constant time, effort, and attention. That may sound obvious, but I rarely treat them with the same mindset. After all, work feels more urgent and its rewards are more immediate and tangible. But in the long term, relationships appear to be the foundation of lifelong well-being. The longest-running study on happiness concludes, “Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives... Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.” So while work is important, and career advancement matters, so does your happiness, and strong relationships appear to be the primary ingredient. Put them first by being ambitious about your personal life.

2. Make it easy to keep in touch — Keeping in touch with friends is one of those “important but not urgent” things that people are notoriously bad at prioritizing. It’s easy to rationalize, “Oh, I’ll reach out tomorrow or next week when I have more time.” Soon enough, months have passed without a text or FaceTime. It’s not intentional; it’s just rarely urgent. This year, I started a new routine to spare me from this tendency. Every Sunday evening, I reach out to a few friends to plan hangouts or catch-ups for the week. And now that it’s a ritual each week, I get a little boost from crossing it off my mental to-do list.
   After a month or two, you may start reaching out to people who you don’t chat with as often. It may feel like asking someone on a date. But calling unprompted is now a faux pas, and showing up unannounced is only acceptable for interventions. So just send the “Hey, free to catch up this week?” text. And if you get a little nervous when those 3 floating dots show up, give yourself some grace. One of the most common regrets of the dying is not keeping in touch with friends. Simple rituals can help us stay close with friends and give our relationships the sustained attention they deserve.

3. Become a regular — Aside from the office, how many places do you go where people know your name? These spots can be anywhere people regularly congregate. A coffee shop. A dive bar. A local bookstore. A dog park. A Crossfit studio. A farmer’s market. These neighborhood spots – our modern watering holes – are a great way to meet new people. In New York, I used to start my day at the same coffee shop everyday. Over time, I got to know the baristas and other regulars. We didn’t become best friends, but I noticed a deep comfort from starting each day surrounded by friendly, familiar faces. So, in short, become a regular. Our apartments shouldn’t be the only place that feels like home. 

4. Try the Metaverse — I think we’re witnessing one of the greatest experiments in human history: in the span of one lifetime, humanity is transitioning from an in-person world to a world that is online-first. Americans already spend almost half their waking hours looking at screens, and that number is rising. The same is true globally for wealthy countries. Does that feel dystopian to you? Same here. But for now, humanity appears to be on a one-way train to the metaverse, so we may as well make some friends along the way. And one benefit of the internet? Communities can be incredibly niche, so we can find people that share our unique interests. For example, in real life, I don’t know anyone who writes about, well, whatever this newsletter is about. But then I did an online writing course, met five people that do, and now we hang out on Zoom and write together twice a week. We’ve never met in-person, but spending time with them is always a highlight of my week. 

5. Resist the Metaverse — Virtual conversations can be rewarding, but if I could choose between spending time with someone virtually or in-person, I’d choose in-person every time. From Jerry Seinfeld’s legendary defense of NYC during the pandemic: “Energy, attitude and personality cannot be ‘remoted’ through even the best fiber optic lines.” Now that the pandemic is subsiding, I’m trying to find in-person communities that share my passions and hobbies: a meditation center, a HIIT fitness studio, a local Effective Altruism group, a soccer team. What might a few of these spots be for you?

6. Have a home base – The digital nomad hype has been increasing over the last few years. It’s not surprising. Getting paid while traveling the world is an incredible opportunity. For the first year, my experience as a digital nomad met my high expectations. But then the novelty started to fade. I became restless for a steady routine and stable community. Digital nomading is great for a lot of things; in-person relationships are not among them. After two years as a nomad, I’m eager to have a home base again. Where? I’m not sure, but probably SF, LA, Austin, or Brooklyn. Maybe I’ll make a Doodle poll and let all of you decide.

7. Attend Sunday Church — I’m not religious, but sometimes I wish I were. I’ve noticed that my religious friends tend to have stronger roots. They seem less swayed by the trials of day-to-day life. Studies show religious people also tend to be happier. As religious affiliation continues to fall off a cliff, I can’t help but think we’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Organized religion certainly has its evils: dogma, tribalism, and scientific skepticism to name a few. But it also has its benefits. Community. Service. Gratitude. Ritual. Purpose. Meaning. So how can we extract the good parts of religion and exclude the bad? A secular version of Sunday church would be ideal, but I don’t think that exists yet. In the meantime, I’m on the lookout for other ways to satisfy these core desires, like being of service through volunteering, finding meaning through work, and connecting with community through social rituals. 

8. Create social rituals — My friend Sterling’s family is run by ritual. Every Sunday morning, they deliver bagels to their neighbors. Every Friday night, they invite friends over for pizza night. The beauty of social rituals is their simplicity. They’re concrete plans that don’t require the normal flood of logistical questions, “What are we doing? Where are we going? What time? Who’s coming? Did you make a reservation?” Nope. It’s pizza, at the house, 7:30 as always, and anyone who wants to come is welcome. Social rituals are plans made easy. 

9. Talk to strangers —  My friend Charlie can become friends with anyone. I met him yesterday for coffee, and by the time we got our drinks, he already knew the barista by name and was ranking Mexico City restaurants with the couple next to us. He’s effortlessly at ease among strangers – a rare superpower. He also has the strongest network of close friends of anyone I know. I’m trying to imitate him and become more comfortable chatting with strangers. Like a newborn giraffe, the movements can be awkward at first, but it feels worth the initial discomfort. And the same lesson applies online. Last week, my girlfriend DM’d her favorite photographer (who has 1M+ followers), and they ended up having an hour-long phone call about photojournalism, climate change, and career paths. Thanks to the internet, meeting new people is both harder and easier than ever. 

10. Become neighbors with your friends —  I’ve grown more and more skeptical about where we live. Not geographically, but structurally. The anonymity of life in high-rise apartment buildings seems like the antithesis of the small community-based living that humans evolved in. It’s weird that we often live just a few feet from other people and know nothing about them. Luckily, this norm is starting to change. Community-focused housing is starting to spring up in cities around the country. After spending a few months living in community over the last year, I’m confident that humans are happier when our neighbors become our friends, and our friends become our neighbors. 

I’ve only been trying these ideas out for a few months, but I’ve noticed a huge difference already.

Are there other ideas that you’ve found helpful for building community? If so, I’d love to hear about them in the comments. 

Thanks for reading,

Mark