What happened? I was so focused on building the tools for belonging that I forgot to actually practice belonging. Call my family, show up for my friends, support the art shows of the brilliant folks in my circle, volunteer at the community garden, attend the programming at my local library, walk down to the bar that was literally underneath my feet. This is the slippery trap of building software for deepening connection without actually being connected. Existing on a social media platform doesn’t mean we’re engaged in a social practice, showing up on Zoom does not mean we’re present and increased awareness of all the potential events you could attend this weekend might actually increase your felt sense of loneliness. The church of techno-optimism would have us believe that software can solve suffering but there’s no solution for that, only a salve. The salve is the practice of returning to each other, ourselves and our local ecosystems again and again. Most of the time it requires a knock on the door, a phone call, handpicked herbs from your garden in outstretched hands smelling of rosemary asking for permission to hold you.

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