Becoming easy to find

I've been trying to be around people more. The weird thing is after working in a hole for 5 or 6 years, the only way I feel like I can be around people is by "working in parallel". Side Project Saturday, hosted by Justin Bennett over at the val.town offices, has been a great onramp back into social life. It's quiet, often it can feel rude to have a conversation and break anyone else's flow, but it's a room full of really creative people who are doing just some of the most fun and interesting explorations of technology and art. And we're all physically around each other, learning each other's names and perspectives each week.

I think one of the requirements of community-building that doesn't get talked about enough is that you must become easy to find^[1]. Physically, emotionally, ideologically, people need to know where to find you to be able to reach to you, and that has to be reliable if you want something approaching community.

There's something vulnerable about that requirement for community. Being easy to find means being easy to target, easy to analyze, easy to pin down. There is also something existentially dreadful about it. Being in some place ritualistically means not being anywhere else. Sitting still in a spot means not exploring the edges of the map^[2]. I think I have been charmed for my young adult life^[3] into thinking I can be anything anywhere anytime. That's a mirage: one of those idyllic pictures of life that only holds up as long as it's never put into practice. You must choose somewhere to be. You must choose to be a single someone.