#96: Why Do We Aspire to Live Alone?

There’s a sustained mythology around living alone in America, where personal achievement is foundational to our understanding of growth.

It’s not that there’s nothing wonderful—or challenging, in an interesting way—about making and cultivating an isolated living space. But it’s definitely a less natural way of being, at least if you’re taking human history into account. That we’ve come to see it as admirable says a lot about our culture: our commitment to individualism, our emphasis... See more

Humans are social creatures—cooperative and interdependent almost by biological definition. So if it’s not actually natural to our species to be self-sufficient, why is it considered aspirational?

Having complete responsibility for and power over my domain seemed like the ultimate rite of passage into adulthood. I’d consumed plenty of media that reinforced the idea, too. Looking back, I don’t regret my choice to try it, but I wonder what I actually proved.

But I wonder what it would look like for financial or personal growth to lead to different, better kinds of communal living instead of an exit from it altogether.

Rather than an important rite of passage, maybe living alone is just one experience of many that can shape a person. By emphasizing it—not just individuals living on their own, but individual, nuclear families, too—I wonder what kind of society we’re aiming to create.