040. Won’t you be my neighbor?

Independence vs community

I recently came across an insightful post that described the various ways that people are bad at asking for help. Here are three that I identified with:

1. Independence and self-sufficiency are core parts of my identity, both out of necessity and because these values were praised.

2. I was usually the helper, so asking for help would undercut that identity. This ties into feeling the need to prove my worth/lovableness.

3. Not feeling enough belonging to even consider asking for help in the first place.

It’s a complex subject with various sources, from innate personality traits to toxic masculinity and rugged American individualism. But I realized there was one mundane factor: how car-centric my childhood was.¹

I grew up in the suburbs near a busy boulevard, probably because it was less desirable and thus less competitive when my parents were looking to buy a house. My parents chauffeured me around to after-school activities and to friends’ houses for school projects. For someone who considers himself independent and self-sufficient, I was actually lacking a lot of agency in the suburbs.

Additionally, because of my location, I never had neighborhood friends.

Going to college was a game-changer. I’m not the only one who remembers:

I moved to New York City after graduating, and I loved it. I’ve lived in Beijing and Berlin as well. I really liked living in cities. I felt independent, that I could do what I wanted, when I wanted.

Yet I never really made lasting friends. Sure, I reconnected with high school and college friends, but those were point-to-point (i.e. they weren’t friends with each other). People I met at classes or events never became long-lasting friends. The few friends that showed promise would inevitably end up moving out of the city (a pretty common NYC/mid-20s experience).

I never felt like I had a support network. I felt the lack most when I came down with a bad fever one winter. I trudged my aching body through the snow to a nearby pharmacy to buy medicine and came back to my empty apartment to cook for myself.

Moving back home during the pandemic pulled me back into suburb life. I was back in car-centric mode, but I noticed how nice it was to be back around family. When I got sick, I was able to rest up knowing that I would have a hot meal waiting for me. I was around people who cared.

I’m getting to the age where committing and settling down in one location feels more and more inevitable. Not only inevitable, but fulfilling.

You must pick a community based on geography on a long time horizon. Think in decades, not years. You must put some skin in the game via home ownership, starting a business, or other means that somehow intertwine your future with the future of those around you. This may not be the best way to maximize your economic returns. But personal economic benefit is not (entirely) the point.²

It might be confirmation bias on my part, but it seems to be a common yearning.

yitong @zhayitong

One of my long term goals in life is to have a circle of deep local friends – people within walking distance you can drop in on any given evening. Seems really hard.

Ava @noampomsky

the older I get the more I’m like “oh I really want to be geographically close to as many people I love as possible”

Matt Yao @matt__yao

the ideal work environment is living walking distance to my friends and we rotate hosting everyone else (if we all had big enough places) each person working on their own project and the host makes everyone coffee and slices fruit like an Asian mom

I’m torn. The freedom of the city vs my family in the suburbs. Neither with any broader community to connect with.

Kevin Zhai (39/100 on substack) @heykzhai

@crystalxduan reading your post made me realize how much I yearned to be part of a squad in the shows I watched as a kid: Kids Next Door, Teen Titans, ATLA, most shonen, etc found families just hit different 🥲

On the bright side, it’s been inspiring seeing others taking action.

Fellow

100-day Creator Challenge

writer Alex Wagner is documenting his journey buying land with friends:

Through Twitter, I’ve discovered people pulling digital communities into the real-world.³

priya rose 🌹 @Prigoose

TL;DR: The Neighborhood is a project to bring 1000 ambitious, diverse nerds into one square mile of each other. The goal is to emulate a college campus, where you're likely to run into a friend on any given excursion, and have a spontaneous conversation or adventure.

Their work is a reminder that my choice isn’t as binary as I think.

Maybe all I need to do is ask for help.

1. I suppose that still falls under rugged American individualism

2. https://www.seanblanda.com/its-time-for-localism-in-america/

3

• https://neighborhoodsf.com/

• https://www.thesfcommons.com/

• https://www.cabin.city/