The Age of Abandonment

So how do we actually do this community thing?

Friendship vs. Community. My personal experiences, thoughts and ideas for re-imagining the world

Nadia Meli

Mar 10, 2025

On a fine day in May last year I was scrolling through Substack and saw a note someone had shared that said: “I am so heartbroken that I am not married yet, I thought I would have my own... See more

No wonder people hunker down and avoid committing. The macro risk is gone; nobody is seriously worried about global nuclear conflagration. [1] We’re worried about comparatively micro risks, though: financial instability; the grinding risk of having more debt and fewer assets than the previous generations; the fear of relentless social atomization —... See more

Turns out the zombie apocalypse isn’t as fun as they said it would be – Rebecca Solnit on our dangerously disconnected world

A population numbed, dazed, present-but-not-present – had it happened overnight it would be a sci-fi horror movie. And if you looked up from your phone for long enough, you might notice it’s started already...

Rebecca Solnit

S... See more

Our age attempts to cure loneliness through romantic love with the promise that we may, each of us, find one very special person to whom we can tie ourselves for life and who will spare us the need for anyone else. But this emphasis serves only to aggravate our isolation and renders our relationships more fractious than they should be, for no singl

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And the freedom—we never felt the freedom to grow up clumsily; to be young and dumb and make stupid mistakes without fear of it being posted online. Or the freedom to be unavailable, to disconnect for a while without the pressure of Read Receipts and Last Active statuses. We never knew a childhood spent chasing experiences and risks and independenc... See more