Brian Wiesner

Good things come to those who write

Once people start coupling up, the challenges only increase. Making friends with other couples “is like matchmaking for two,” said Kara Baskin, a journalist who works in Boston. “Not only are you worrying about whether the other woman likes you, you’re also worrying if her husband likes you, if your husband likes her, if your husband likes him.”

That piece by Patrick Brown cites a whole bunch of data that questions the assumption that urban form necessarily leads to neighborliness. He writes, for example:

Small towns, lauded by Putnam for their high rates of civic engagement, often boast the kind of low-density development and heavy automobile reliance associated with the much-maligned

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Rarely do we think of creatives as wealthy or successful, even cracking jokes about the wastefulness of art degrees and theater classes. We have heard how pursuing creativity is not a safe career move, whether that means chasing an interest in literature, music, or some other endeavor.

Everyone is trying to over-engineer this thing, but it is actually pretty simple.

Because there are very few people who are networking, even fewer are networking well .

I present you with the opportunity to be one of the few. One of the scrappy. One of the curious. One of the brave who decide that networking isn’t defined by the amorphous icky... See more

You Want a Social Life, with Friends

by Kenneth Koch

You want a social life, with friends.

A passionate love life and as well

To work hard every day. What’s true

Is of these three you may have two

And two can pay you dividends

But never may have three.

There isn’t time enough, my friends–

Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends–

To find the time to have... See more

Murthy offers a strategy to address loneliness that begins with building up the infrastructure that enables social connection. That includes physical infrastructure, such as parks and libraries, and also social infrastructure to weave together volunteers or enthusiasts with similar interests. Once again, Britain provides a model.

The English town of... See more

I struggle to understand why this feeling moves me so much, but there is just nothing else like it. From being so immersed in a conversation that you leave a changed person to getting a job through a friend of a friend.

These precious, golden moments. Sometimes it feels like fate, like we were just in the right place at the right time, sometimes... See more

Love is presented as being selfless, but perhaps it can also be a harmonious union of rational self-interest.