Alone but Together

This weekend I was in nature with friends. Good weather, good people, nothing to prove. And in one of those quiet in-between moments, a song came on. C19 by Felin. It came out during Covid, and if you were anywhere near a screen back then, the mood might come back to you before the melody does.

The song is about how close we can be to each other and still feel alone. About wanting someone to promise you it’s all going to be okay and that “the world is not going to end” even when no one can actually promise that.

I felt emotional because it’s true. I do wish someone could reassure me the world is not going to end. And I do think we are, as humans, impossibly close and impossibly far at the same time.

It made me think of something Brené Brown writes about in Atlas of the Heart. One of her arguments is that we struggle to connect today partly because we lack the language for what we’re actually feeling. We say “I’m fine” or “I’m stressed” when the real word might be lonely or disconnected, or just tired of performing. She also draws a hard line between belonging and fitting in. Fitting in means editing yourself to be accepted. Belonging means being accepted as you already are. Most of us are doing a lot more of the first than the second, and it might be part of why loneliness feels so widespread right now, even though we’ve never been more “connected” by every technical measure.

I’m optimistic. I think most of us have a choice at least between two kind of futures. One is a kind of matrix, life mediated by optimization, safe but hollow. The other is what I’d call the nature path. Slower, messier, more connected to the ground under our feet and the people next to us.

But I don’t know which way we’re heading. None of us do. Everyone I talk to feels the same thing. Things are accelerating, and it doesn’t always feel like it’s accelerating in the right direction. At the same time, there is real progress happening, and with it, a real promise of a better life. Both things are true at once.

Here’s what I keep coming back to. What I actually want, with everything I’m building, is to help people build a deeper self-awareness and a deeper presence. I believe navigating whatever comes next well starts with being connected. To each other. To nature. And first, to yourself.

But connection is not simple. Sometimes you’ve told your best friend the same worry three times. Your partner has heard it too. So has the acquaintance you ran into last week. And still, some part of you wants to say it once more, to someone new. Just because you need a version of listening that isn’t tangled up in history and expectation.

Sometimes what you actually want a perspective from someone who is not biased and completely unaffected by the outcome. Someone with no stake in whether you take the job, forgive the friend, stay or go. There are so many moments like that. Not a replacement for the people who know you. Just another door. Relationships, in all their layers, are what make us close instead of just near each other. Not close and far. Close, close.

You can’t pour from an empty cup, the saying goes, and it’s a cliché because it’s true. I don’t think anyone can build anything good or lasting from a place of depletion. Regeneration has to start with the self. Fill your own resource bag first. Then you have something to give.

I’m sure you’re seeing a lot written on this topic right now. Everyone is. I don’t have a neat answer. Just a feeling, and a practice I keep returning to.

One more thing before I go. There’s a lot cooking in MoMo right now. Some UX improvements, a way to finally talk to a real human when you need one, and more. Keep an eye on the app this summer.

And speaking of summer. Use it. Not to optimize it, just to be in it. Be still. Dream a little. Reflect if you feel like it, and don’t if you don’t. We’re not robots. We need the downtime to be the best version of ourselves.