I keep thinking about this notion of living with your friends instead of feeding each other updates every six months. This is especially alive for me right now as I am back in the Bay Area catching up with friends. Most of my friends are people I worked with or lived with—we did life together intensely at one point to form a strong bond, but now our lives have grown in wildly different directions. Often in these catchups I feel like I have to remember my former self and try to be that person in one way so there's a thread of continuity, but that feels like wearing too-small shoes.
Jesse's solution to this was that last year he rented a big house in Mexico for a month and invited everyone he knows (https://hinterlander.substack.com/p/an-invitation) to stop by for some time, and I'm hoping to make that an annual tradition. That sort of thing won't work for everyone, but for those who do make the trek I imagine it renews the bonds quite a bit.
Anyway, you and Cécile are invited to Mexico next winter :)
I love that you are thinking about this too. It has been on my mind very much the last month or two in a personal friend demographic sense (how do I cultivate friendships that allow a more "co-living" connection), and longer than that in a "can I create an actual community living situation for my friends and family?" sense. I was largely inspired by the Supernuclear blog on Substack, which is mostly about full-on "co-living" (as in forms of cohabitating), but touches on more broad and flexible forms of co-living as well.
I think you've articulated several things very well here, particularly the frame of "talking about our lives" vs. "living them together". Unfortunately I think it's our culture that is broadly stacked against co-living in general, from the prioritization of work and the commonality of "9-5" schedules, to the primacy of the "nuclear family" (especially in the US, but AFAIK in many European countries too in this century). So it's up to us to find ways to prioritize co-living in our lives and with our friends (and family!). Hopefully with more and more people doing this, the sharing of ideas and experiences will help inspire and support ever more to do so.
Personally I'm a little skeptical of the "cozy web", particularly as far as Discord is concerned. Probably this is in good part due to the habits and preferences of my primary, local friend group, the vast majority of which have never used Discord, and for many of whom (myself included) chat-style interactions can be overwhelming and feel demanding rather than "cozy". Ironically I actually feel like Facebook at a certain stage, maybe 10-15 years ago, was a pretty great balance of broad and cozy. Before it got invaded by too many ads, company posts in general, feed "suggestions", etc, etc., it was a feed largely composed of updates on life from my friends, and I loved that. Now much of that is scattered to Instagram, with so many people (inexplicably to me) using Stories to share their life, which is ephemeral. If you're not there to see their story before it expires, it's gone! I don't get that practice... Anyway, I digress. My solution to this is actually to create a psuedo-Facebook on my own and try to get all my friends over to it. I like the central feed view that each person can have (which Discord lacks), the better capability for photo galleries (a common share on social media, e.g. kids, vacation, etc.), and all that. I'm likely going to use BuddyBoss and self-host, having looked at Friendica and Diaspora (and Mastadon) and found them all subpar for my needs. But of course if Discord works well for you and your friends, that's great!
Anyway I hope you continue to share your thoughts and experiences on this line of thinking and your experiments to bring more of this into your life!
Wow TIL "cozy web." So apt.
I keep thinking about this notion of living with your friends instead of feeding each other updates every six months. This is especially alive for me right now as I am back in the Bay Area catching up with friends. Most of my friends are people I worked with or lived with—we did life together intensely at one point to form a strong bond, but now our lives have grown in wildly different directions. Often in these catchups I feel like I have to remember my former self and try to be that person in one way so there's a thread of continuity, but that feels like wearing too-small shoes.
Jesse's solution to this was that last year he rented a big house in Mexico for a month and invited everyone he knows (https://hinterlander.substack.com/p/an-invitation) to stop by for some time, and I'm hoping to make that an annual tradition. That sort of thing won't work for everyone, but for those who do make the trek I imagine it renews the bonds quite a bit.
Anyway, you and Cécile are invited to Mexico next winter :)
I love that you are thinking about this too. It has been on my mind very much the last month or two in a personal friend demographic sense (how do I cultivate friendships that allow a more "co-living" connection), and longer than that in a "can I create an actual community living situation for my friends and family?" sense. I was largely inspired by the Supernuclear blog on Substack, which is mostly about full-on "co-living" (as in forms of cohabitating), but touches on more broad and flexible forms of co-living as well.
I think you've articulated several things very well here, particularly the frame of "talking about our lives" vs. "living them together". Unfortunately I think it's our culture that is broadly stacked against co-living in general, from the prioritization of work and the commonality of "9-5" schedules, to the primacy of the "nuclear family" (especially in the US, but AFAIK in many European countries too in this century). So it's up to us to find ways to prioritize co-living in our lives and with our friends (and family!). Hopefully with more and more people doing this, the sharing of ideas and experiences will help inspire and support ever more to do so.
Personally I'm a little skeptical of the "cozy web", particularly as far as Discord is concerned. Probably this is in good part due to the habits and preferences of my primary, local friend group, the vast majority of which have never used Discord, and for many of whom (myself included) chat-style interactions can be overwhelming and feel demanding rather than "cozy". Ironically I actually feel like Facebook at a certain stage, maybe 10-15 years ago, was a pretty great balance of broad and cozy. Before it got invaded by too many ads, company posts in general, feed "suggestions", etc, etc., it was a feed largely composed of updates on life from my friends, and I loved that. Now much of that is scattered to Instagram, with so many people (inexplicably to me) using Stories to share their life, which is ephemeral. If you're not there to see their story before it expires, it's gone! I don't get that practice... Anyway, I digress. My solution to this is actually to create a psuedo-Facebook on my own and try to get all my friends over to it. I like the central feed view that each person can have (which Discord lacks), the better capability for photo galleries (a common share on social media, e.g. kids, vacation, etc.), and all that. I'm likely going to use BuddyBoss and self-host, having looked at Friendica and Diaspora (and Mastadon) and found them all subpar for my needs. But of course if Discord works well for you and your friends, that's great!
Anyway I hope you continue to share your thoughts and experiences on this line of thinking and your experiments to bring more of this into your life!