Community

[00:10] Rory: My name is Rory O’Toole.

[00:12] Matt: And my name is Matt Schultz.

[00:14] Rory: And this is how to be the.

[00:17] Matt: Podcast where we discuss ancient wisdom, modern hacks, paperback self help books, and pithy.

[00:23] Rory: Platitudes in the hopes of figuring out the best way to live this one precious and wild life.

[00:31] Matt: Do you live an isolated, individualistic existence? Are you looking for ways to connect with those around you and those who think like you? If so, join us as we discuss the lost Camelot of communal living.

[00:58] Rory: Welcome back, Matt. We’re back from our hiatus.

[01:02] Matt: We are back. We’re so excited to be back.

[01:04] Rory: We are. We’ve been trying to record for a while, actually, but we are just two ships passing in the night because you’re in kind of a weird limbo. You’re on a vacation, but in the country you live in, I guess a staycation.

[01:20] Matt: A staycation? Yeah. I’m back in Tel Aviv for the summer, not in Jerusalem. And I’m just working instead of working and schooling. This is actually what my whole life was like for years, and it feels so easy and free.

[01:39] Rory: I know.

[01:40] Matt: I wonder why I ever disrupted it.

[01:43] Rory: You need the contrast. That’s why, to appreciate it.

[01:47] Matt: I was like, you know, it’d be nice. Tens of thousands of dollars in loans, an overburdened schedule, and a five year commitment. And it really does make you appreciate the simple things, way things were.

[02:09] Rory: Well, my summer has been really up and down, but that’s for another. Um, and then we both saw a movie this weekend, a big movie. The movie of the year, maybe the.

[02:21] Matt: Movie of the year. Barbie.

[02:23] Rory: The Barbie movie.

[02:25] Matt: I’m a Barbie girl. Are you a Barbie girl now? Did you like it?

[02:31] Rory: Well, I was always a Barbie girl. I had a lot of Barbie. I had a lot of barbies and a lot of Barbie accessories. I had the dream house with the elevator and the horse, which is an important. A lot about horses. I thought the movie was mostly enjoyable. A lot of smiles on my face. Did not need the America Ferreira character or her daughter at all.

[02:57] Matt: No.

[02:58] Rory: We could have used that time to make all of that storyline to make I. Spoilers, everyone. There’s going to be some spoilers to skip ahead.

[03:08] Matt: Spoilers.

[03:09] Rory: What I didn’t like was at the end, when Barbie wants the ending, Barbie wants to be human. I didn’t get that. Throughout the movie, I thought we could have cut the America Ferreira character and the child and spent more time making her interested in being human 100%.

[03:29] Matt: I had the exact same thought as, like, this was not your character arc. Like, you were not on this journey at all, wanting to be human. And then all of a sudden, they introduced that. Okay, so it had, like, a few plotlines, and none of them were really developed. One was like Barbie’s journey towards humanity. One was like, they’re being chased by Mattel corporate, which they completely forget about for 75% of the movie.

[03:57] Rory: Yeah, we didn’t need that at all.

[04:00] Matt: We did need one of these plotlines. They just needed to pick one and develop it. Or America Ferreira and her daughter, which was also just so undeveloped and so plot. They had, like, four different plots for this movie. All of them were flat, and they needed to pick one and do it. Also, you know, the ghost of Barbie’s creator. Was that the woman from cheers?

[04:29] Rory: Yeah. Rhea Pearlman.

[04:31] Matt: Okay. Rhea Pearlman. The ghost of Rhea Pearlman comes and is. Are. If you want to be human, you have to know what you’re really getting into. And she shows her a vision of what it’s like to be a human. Little girls playing and being on swing sets, but also tears. And Barbie says, yes, I see where.

[04:59] Rory: You’Re going with this.

[05:02] Matt: I thought Barbie deserved a little more information about what it’s really like. I wanted images of nazis goose stepping across Berlin.

[05:14] Rory: Yeah.

[05:14] Matt: I wanted footage. Know those girls being freed from that guy’s basement where they had been locked up? Breaking news. Yeah, breaking news. Ariel Castro had six women trapped in his basement for eight years.

[05:32] Rory: You know, would have been very germane. The atomic bomb going off.

[05:36] Matt: I want the same era.

[05:40] Rory: Not the same. No, I meant because Oppenheimer’s coming out this weekend, too.

[05:45] Matt: Oh, I thought you meant because Barbie was developed in the 50s.

[05:53] Rory: No.

[05:55] Matt: A time of.

[05:56] Rory: Is Oppenheimer not coming out by you right this weekend?

[06:00] Matt: No, it is. I just forgot. I forgot about the true connection. Yeah. Nuclear bomb. I just thought Barbie deserved a lot more information.

[06:12] Rory: Yeah, agreed.

[06:13] Matt: And she would have been.

[06:16] Rory: Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s like the giver. She’s the receiver.

[06:21] Matt: It was just not a great movie. How come no movies are great?

[06:25] Rory: I don’t know why no movies are great. It was smiles. But, yeah, it’s for kids. Maybe it was just like, a little too corporate. That’s the thing about movies. It’s like kids movies with adult jokes. I’m like, is this for kids or is this for adults? But adult movies with stupid lines.

[06:45] Matt: It was not for opening.

[06:48] Rory: I liked the dance sequences, actually.

[06:52] Matt: The dance sequence was nice.

[06:55] Rory: And could you imagine having as much charisma as Ryan Gosling? How does he. He is so charismatic.

[07:03] Matt: That’s what all the reviews are saying. It doesn’t work on me.

[07:06] Rory: Are you kidding?

[07:08] Matt: I’m unaffected.

[07:09] Rory: I am like, you are a charmer.

[07:13] Matt: Wow.

[07:14] Rory: Kind of stole the movie.

[07:16] Matt: That’s what everyone is saying. Really. Mario Robbie just can’t even be on screen with him because he steals the. And I, like, was not getting.

[07:28] Rory: Like, I could not handle being around someone like that in real life.

[07:34] Matt: Don’t feel that way. That’s fascinating. I don’t have an antipathy towards him either. I just like. Okay. Generic, attractive male actor.

[07:45] Rory: I don’t think he’s attractive. That’s the interesting thing. I think he has a weird head. Strange placement of features on the head.

[07:54] Matt: Okay. Find him so funny and likable.

[07:58] Rory: Yeah.

[07:58] Matt: Talented.

[07:59] Rory: There’s just something about him to me. His swagger. He has. Swagger. Confidence. He has.

[08:08] Matt: Okay, okay. I get it. Well, I don’t care, but I can see it.

[08:15] Rory: Who do you think is charming?

[08:17] Matt: Who makes you giggle? I mean, Sarah Jessica Parker.

[08:21] Rory: Oh, my God. How gorgeous was Sarah Jessica Parker in this week’s episode of end? Just like this. This is coming out later than. So it’s the episode where.

[08:33] Matt: Episode six.

[08:34] Rory: Yeah. SJP is speaking at the widowcon. She looks so beautiful up there reading from her book, didn’t she?

[08:43] Matt: Her beauty was a little out of control this episode, I would say. I thought she was almost too beautiful. Like I was like, give other women a chance.

[08:55] Rory: Why does she look so beautiful this season?

[08:59] Matt: She’s just that long, elegant head. So patrician, so beautiful. The light in her eyes.

[09:12] Rory: Okay, should we get started? That’s a show about community, but also individual. Yeah, it really. Both of those topics, actually.

[09:25] Matt: I think it’s about filling the void of community, but it’s not about community.

[09:31] Rory: There you go.

[09:31] Matt: You can’t call your three best girlfriends a community, but it’s what they do to fill the void. Because the modern world, we’re just jumping in. We’re talking about community. Today. The modern world does not have communities in the way that it used to. So we fill the void the best we can.

[09:53] Rory: Yeah.

[09:54] Matt: Three good girlfriends is as good a solution as any, right?

[09:59] Rory: So, yeah, I mean, for millennia, human beings lived one way much more communally. And then basically since the industrial revolution, like, let’s say, late 18s, we’ve been living a more individualistic life. Apartments for a single person. One person lives there. You and your cat. You and your dog. You and your ghosts. And that is a radically different way of being than it had been for thousands of years. And thusly, it.

[10:41] Matt: Video today about this building in Japan that they just deconstructed. It ended up not being a successful project. But it’s interesting as sort of a thought experiment. It was a residential tower, a series of residential towers built of modular pods. So in it would be this sort of perfect little white square. It was built in, like, the 80s or the 90s or something. And it has your little bathroom in your little kitchen and your little living space, a little tiny pod apartment. And it’s sort of like the individualist. It’s like the logical end of this individualism project. The apartments literally are barely connected to the same infrastructure. Like, you can pull one out and put a new one in, or, like.

[11:33] Rory: A bunch of storage spaces that you.

[11:37] Matt: Are storage connected, and they end up never actually switching in old ones and new ones. But that was like the architectural plan, that the building would be reshapable in all these different ways.

[11:51] Rory: Yeah. So I was thinking about this, about what caused this change. It was a lot of people moving into cities to work in factories when they had to leave their family, because a family was kind of, a lot of times an economic unit. Right. They lived and worked together. Then people began to be able to get jobs outside of their family. Even if you worked with, like, as an apprentice, you kind of became part of someone else’s family. You lived and worked with those people. And now we’re working in factories, we’re living in cities, working for the blacksmith.

[12:29] Matt: Marry his homely, soot smudged daughter.

[12:34] Rory: Exactly. And you all sleep in one big bed. Family bed. You sleep.

[12:41] Matt: My family. We did that.

[12:44] Rory: Oh, yeah.

[12:46] Matt: Mom, dad, brothers, aunts, uncles. On a busy night. It was about 30 of us in there.

[12:58] Rory: Head, toe, head, toe.

[13:00] Matt: Yeah.

[13:04] Rory: Each with your computer out, watching a different show.

[13:08] Matt: Yeah, it was chaotic.

[13:13] Rory: And then came, like, the rise of the nuclear family, which we’re always hearkening back to, as if that is the way that the world has always been. Mom, dad, x amount of children, depending on if you have an open womb or not. But that’s not really the way it’s always been. That was the way it was for a brief period of time until the nuclear family, after a few decades, broke down. And actually, we started living alone for a lot of the time. And a lot of our lives we spend living alone, let’s say, or maybe with a roommate. But when you have a roommate, you’re kind of living alone. I think, in our world and in our demographic, having a roommate can easily not be a form of community. You can really set, like, strict boundaries.

[14:04] Matt: Yeah.

[14:04] Rory: You might not even notice you die.

[14:07] Matt: Yeah. There’s different versions of it, for sure. From the more communal, I would always tell potential roommates, I’m looking for a familial vibe, not a commune.

[14:23] Rory: You would?

[14:24] Matt: Yeah.

[14:25] Rory: What’s a familial vibe versus commune?

[14:28] Matt: I think of a family as.

[14:34] Rory: You’re like, one bed.

[14:36] Matt: One bed. Like a family. Like, you can share some things, but you don’t share. It’s like, not a family vibe, what I’m describing. But I guess I meant, like, just like, it’s friendly. You can share some stuff. Not everything in the fridge. Like, the fridge won’t be like this person’s shelf. This person’s shelf, this person’s shelf.

[14:58] Rory: Not a workplace fridge. It’s not a break room fridge.

[15:01] Matt: Yeah, it’s not a break room fridge, but it’s not a commune where everything is shared. Yeah, I guess in a family, everything is shared.

[15:11] Rory: No, my mom would be like, this is my olive oil. Please don’t touch it when you cook. Please buy your own olive oil. Rory. That’s my butter. Excuse me.

[15:27] Matt: Such a funny way to be.

[15:32] Rory: And I was reading this Atlantic article, and of course, I think a lot of people in our world talk a lot about the individual way of living, the breakdown of communal living, as being an advantage for capitalism. And this Atlantic article, I think, put it, well, the market wants us to live alone or with just a few people. That way, we are mobile, unattached, and uncommitted, able to devote an enormous number of hours to our. Oh, second, when people who are raised in developed countries get money, they buy privacy. And that reminded me a lot of a Joan Didion essay in I think it’s slouching towards Bethlehem, where she talks about Howard Hughes and know Howard Hughes was a recluse who lived completely alone and how that’s what he was able to buy. But I always thought that essay was interesting because I’m like, no. People love to share their lives on social media. They hate privacy. But now I’m starting to have a more nuanced approach to that because it’s like what you share is so curated. It’s not like someone’s walked to the bathroom.

[16:42] Matt: Yeah, you’re ultimately very alone. It’s not quite private, but your life is private. You have privacy. You don’t care about people knowing things about you. You have no modesty or humility. Not humility. It’s Modesty, but, yeah. I forget what I read. I read something very similar to that years ago that I think of often that it’s like the first thing people buy when they move up a level socioeconomically is isolation out to the suburbs. And when you think about a lot of times also, this happens with a wedding. And when you think about wedding gifts, it’s like, okay, here’s all of your new property. I think you were saying to me before, the market wants it so that every person has their own blender. No sharing blenders. That way they can sell lots of blenders. So when a couple gets married and they move into their own little cell together, their own little module. Yeah, you move into your module. Here’s your blender, here’s your stand mixer. Yeah. At this point, we’re not even sharing a cup of sugar with our neighbors. Who’s doing that? I am, but that just could have anthrax in it.

[18:09] Rory: I’m folksy like that.

[18:11] Matt: Yeah.

[18:14] Rory: I’m folksy like that. But that is the thing. Like you said, we buy privacy. We both like our privacy. There’s a lot of good things to privacy as well. I mean, one problem with living with other people is you have to be around other people, and other people have personalities, and those personalities are annoying.

[18:37] Matt: Or like, okay, we went to a very small college, Sadie Lew, Sarah Lawrence. And I felt truly oppressed by the smallness. By the end of, like, I was like, I want to be free of people’s prying eyes.

[18:58] Rory: Yeah. I mean, anonymity can be so freeing. Like, when I moved from in Chicago, I was living in the neighborhood I grew up in, which was this cute little neighborhood, but, like, too many familiar faces. I was sick of running into people at the little grocery store where you bought that honey.

[19:18] Matt: Oh, yeah.

[19:20] Rory: And now I live in this huge, anonymous city, and I think about it all the time. There’s no chance in hell I’m going to run into anyone, anywhere, because I don’t know anyone relative to this population. Yeah. I mean, this is the dream of sex in the city. To live in New York City, to have your small community of girlfriends, that takes up all of the loneliness you might feel, except for when you’re maybe turning 35 and you feel kind of sad that you don’t have a man in your life, and you scamper around the city, rarely running into people you know. And you have this apartment that is absolutely perfect. I mean, you and I watched Sex in the City growing up, and didn’t we just both want to live in Carrie’s apartment?

[20:06] Matt: Yeah, the apartment was the dream. And I don’t think that there’s like, okay, of iconic apartments on tv, of which there are many, excuse me, only the ones that the people live in alone are sort of the fantasy. Like, Frazier’s apartment is great. Obviously. Everyone who walks in is like, oh, Frazier, what an amazing place. But there’s too many people there, so you don’t really dream about it. Whereas Carrie’s apartment, Mary Tyler Moore’s apartment, you know, Seinfeld’s apartment is not so dreamy in that way. But I’d rather live there than in the Frasier apartment, to be honest.

[20:59] Rory: Yeah, but he has drop ins. He’s a lot of drop ins. Carrie never has drop ins. And the other thing about Carrie’s apartment that I’m sort of just realizing now is how quiet it is. This woman never has music playing in the background. The only thing she’s ever watched alone is the credits. Saturday Night Live. She is living in pure silence. And it’s perfectly the right amount of clean, the right amount of cluttered. Everything about it just feels so my apartment, my perfect little slice of the city.

[21:42] Matt: Yes, it’s so perfect. It’s not too nice.

[21:48] Rory: No, it’s not embarrassing.

[21:53] Matt: Everyone talks about the clothing insects in the city being this unrealistic, unaffordable dream. If they had made the apartment similarly sort of decadent, that show would have had no charm. It would have just been like a scripted version of real housewives of New York. It would have been about these rich ******* and we would have all hated them. It’s the warmth and the humbleness and also the personality. The apartment was her. She was the apartment. And the second you have other people in your place, it’s not that anymore. I always like to think of how parents rooms are so boring. Like a shared bedroom, salmon colored walls and bookstands.

[22:50] Rory: Yeah, you’re right. They do have the best tv, though.

[22:59] Matt: They have the best tv. But the kids rooms are know, because that gets to be your space. Posters, galaxy lights. Galaxy lights. You know, it’s you. And Carrie’s apartment is her.

[23:11] Rory: Yeah, but there are a few times in sex in the city where she does mention loneliness. And I was thinking about loneliness and this rise of individualism, individual living versus communal living. And I was like, when did loneliness become a concept? And it seems like it didn’t really exist. Based on my research, before the 19th century, at least not in a chronic form, with the exception of, like maybe a monarch, they said. And Ophelia died. Loneliness, allegedly. But I kind of feel like she died because her boyfriend killed her dad. But maybe she was lonely. And, you know, it’s easier to live alone now because we have all these other forms of communication. Like, we can call someone, we can text someone, yada, yada, yada, but we still feel lonely. I mean, that’s what we talk about all the time. We have all these ways of reaching people, not in person, but does it fill the void?

[24:27] Matt: I’ve had some very lonely periods in my life where the void was just not filled. I was living alone.

[24:34] Rory: Well, that’s why you went to school, as we were.

[24:37] Matt: Yeah, there was a void. There was a void. It’s weird. It’s not like I didn’t have friends and I had a good social life at that point in my life, but there was just something too many margin. So it’s like, okay, you work, you meet this person, you do that. But the margins, the quietness in between all of those things was too much. And when you’re in a bustling community, you don’t get those margins. You crave them, you end up craving them. But I think the loneliness of the margins is more spiritually destructive than the agitation of not having them.

[25:22] Rory: Yeah. It’s interesting because to me, when I look back at the past, before, loneliness was a thing. I think about how especially, I guess I’m thinking victorian era, I guess. But maybe all throughout, it seems to me like people are portrayed as not being able to fully express their true emotions to one another because of propriety’s sake. And to me, propriety and fear of judgment. Whereas now, today, we are constantly expressing our deepest, darkest emotions to people, but we still feel lonely. But that feels lonely to me, living in a society where you can’t say what you really feel or think.

[26:09] Matt: I think you could.

[26:12] Rory: That’s just what I’m picking up.

[26:15] Matt: Yeah. I think there are ways in which you could then, and I think there’s ways in which we can’t now, innuendo.

[26:22] Rory: That I don’t quite appreciate. I can’t. I’m too daft for.

[26:26] Matt: Yeah. Or like, it’s not being reflected in the books necessarily, but, yeah. When you were alone with your sister.

[26:39] Rory: Because Dorothea, Brooke and Celia are not able. I mean, Celia can’t say anything to.

[26:45] Matt: Dorothea, but have you seen, I think I sent you this reel of, like.

[26:51] Rory: It was this, like a reel from the 1850s.

[26:59] Matt: It was from, like, the 50s or the 60s or something. It’s in black and white. And it was like a little prank that they did. And they have these two girls, they’re probably, like, eleven or twelve years old or something. And they introduce them to their new teacher, who’s, like, insanely handsome. Hello, girls. I’ll be your geography teacher today. We’ll be learning about Idaho. And then he leaves the room, and they keep filming them. It’s like a candid camera, and they’re like. And they freak out about this cuteness, and it’s really cute.

[27:36] Rory: But could you do that in 1850?

[27:40] Matt: I think you could.

[27:42] Rory: Okay. I like that idea.

[27:44] Matt: I think it’s just like, we didn’t have the candid cameras then.

[27:49] Rory: I love that idea. I mean, I like to think that.

[27:51] Matt: All human beings were like, yeah, it’s the Dakota. What’s that actress’s name?

[28:01] Rory: Danning?

[28:02] Matt: No, Johnson persuasion. The Dakota Johnson theory of history.

[28:08] Rory: Oh, yeah. Like, we’re all just.

[28:11] Matt: We’re all just millennials.

[28:13] Rory: Please. Millennials.

[28:14] Matt: Yeah.

[28:16] Rory: We’re in converse with our umpire waist dresses.

[28:20] Matt: Exactly.

[28:21] Rory: Okay, so I want to give you this quiz. So to diagnose loneliness, doctors at UCLA devised a loneliness scale. Okay.

[28:32] Matt: Okay.

[28:33] Rory: Answer often. Sometimes. Rarely or never.

[28:37] Matt: Okay.

[28:38] Rory: I am unhappy doing so many things alone. Sometimes I have nobody to talk to. I know that’s not true.

[28:48] Matt: Never.

[28:52] Rory: You’re always talking to me. I cannot tolerate being so alone.

[28:56] Matt: Never.

[28:57] Rory: Never.

[29:00] Matt: I enjoy my alone time these days.

[29:02] Rory: I feel as if nobody really understands me sometimes. Oh, really?

[29:10] Matt: Not nobody? I guess by sometimes I mean to give a moderate answer to that question.

[29:17] Rory: Yeah.

[29:19] Matt: I feel like lots of people don’t understand me, but obviously you understand me. But not my mom understands me, my boyfriend understands me.

[29:31] Rory: I am no longer close to anyone. Isn’t that heartbreaking?

[29:36] Matt: I know. I just think of the elderly. Like, the loneliness the elderly, and it’s so heartbreaking.

[29:45] Rory: There is no one I can turn to, and I feel isolated from others. That is the thing is, there is a huge swath of our world of people, individuals who, for whatever reason, neurodivergent or neurotypical, have a hard time building their own community. And the default community of the way we used to live was so helpful for them and important to them.

[30:15] Matt: Yes. Well, as someone who’s part of a lot of jewish communities, which are like these very organized communities, it’s like you go to services on Saturday and there’s going to be people inviting you to Shabbat dinners, and there’s going to be schmoozing after the services around, like, a table of food. That is huge for people. It’s huge for people. And sometimes, frankly, it’s amazing. It’s huge for me. Like, this weekend, I didn’t have plans. My bf was not in town, and I was like, I’ve got a whole weekend of stuff to do at the church. So I just put on my little Sunday hat, headed down to the church. Yeah. And that was my weekend, and it was great.

[31:17] Rory: Yeah. That is the thing. I mean, this is one of the voids that organized religion really fills that we have not been able to fill with our gross modern responses is community. And this form of community where it doesn’t have anything to do with your personality or individual.

[31:37] Matt: Yeah. You’re with people who are really quite different.

[31:41] Rory: Yeah. So another way that people sort of talk about communal, what we’ve lost now that we live alone or in our smaller family units is like child rearing and how it’s so burdensome to have a family now because both parents are usually working and you have to outsource childcare, you have to pay people to raise your children. And it was easier back in the day when. Well, probably it was a lot easier when only one person was working and you had grandparents around, aunts and uncles, and there was sort of just like, a more communal sense of, like, well, everyone. And especially that meant children were being.

[32:28] Matt: Watched also, there was, dare I say, less expectation for children to be watched.

[32:36] Rory: Yeah. Well, that’s true, too.

[32:39] Matt: And that’s connected because in a strong community and in a small community, there’s less concern about snatchers and danger. It’s like the strollers lined up outside the cafe in whatever country that is. Have you seen those pictures?

[33:00] Rory: Of course. Yeah. Norway.

[33:03] Matt: Yeah. And it’s, like, so weird. I get that you’re not worried, but what if, like, a squirrel gets in there?

[33:12] Rory: Yeah, well, also, it’s like, squirrel also, I was, like, watched a video about that recently, and then she was like, it builds your immune system. I’m like, I don’t think so. What?

[33:24] Matt: To be outside, to be in the.

[33:25] Rory: Cold all the time. I’m like, I don’t think that’s how immune systems work. Is it?

[33:32] Matt: I don’t know.

[33:33] Rory: I guess it builds your tolerance to cold, which is good if you live there. But I digress. Yeah, it’s nice to be able to be like, okay, I got to go. There’s another adult here. BRB. Or, like, if a tragedy happens to you and your individual family, there’s community to bury, to carry the burden. Because I think we do feel like all this adulting nonsense on the Internet is really expressing. Living this life is burdensome.

[34:13] Matt: Yes.

[34:14] Rory: I feel very. By just what would once have been considered the normal comings, goings and doings of the day.

[34:24] Matt: Yeah, it’s hard. And it’s hard to do it alone. It’s much easier to be a team and to split things like housework and work. Work and everything, really. Did you see the movie? The horror movie midsommar?

[34:47] Rory: Of course. Beautiful Florence Pugh and her arms. Debut roles.

[34:55] Matt: Her beautiful, full arms, rounded arms. Yeah. Gorgeous woman. Gorgeous woman. And it’s a movie about the. Spoiler alert again, a movie. The horror in that horror movie is the horror of modern alienation and breakdown of community. You think the horror is the horror of this cult community, but it’s not. The horror is that when she experiences this horrifying grief at the beginning of the movie, there’s no one to hold her. And then she discovers a place where there are people to hold you. And yes, it has these bizarre costs, their particular way of doing things, which turns out to be quite frightening. But in the end, the character chooses this lifestyle because you’re held there. You’re held by a fabric. When she wails out in the midsommar land, all these girls in white dresses rush to her side and wail with her.

[36:05] Rory: That’s true. Although she’s drugged. I don’t know if she. I’ve always wondered what she does at the end. Does she get back on a plane, go back home, file missing report? Seems too logistically daunting to go back to her old life, I guess. And she has no ties there.

[36:22] Matt: Yeah. And she literally just did something pretty intense.

[36:28] Rory: Yeah. You’d probably want to be in a place that normalizes that anyway. Yeah. What you give up with communal living, I think. And what would be really hard for us, like, literally, me, you, others like us, if we were to revert back to communal living, is giving up control, especially, I think, control and child rearing. I think something I hear a lot about people my own age who have kids is like, they want their parents involved, but their parents are constantly doing things that they don’t agree with. Crossing boundaries.

[37:11] Matt: Yes, we love our boundaries, don’t we?

[37:13] Rory: We do. We love our boundaries. And that is a direct result of the privilege of privacy and individual living.

[37:22] Matt: Yeah, I like things done a certain way, or as Carrie says, when she can’t handle Aidan moving in. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. It’s very hard to accept help when help is not just like. And that’s why we love paying for the no strings attached help that modern society has provided us with. The fresh direct, the Amazon prime. Do you know that I’m a Prime member.

[37:54] Rory: Rory. I know customer service at Amazon. Prime knows you’re a Prime member.

[37:59] Matt: I always say, I always like to let them know that they’re dealing with a valued prime member, and then I think they treat me a little nicer. Know I’m very important. They know is. Hello, this is Matt Schultz, prime member. Hard, caring prime member.

[38:21] Rory: That is the thing is, it’s like, actually, this is like individual living is stratified. Like it’s the wealthier or the middle class and above the more educated. Who lives in these individual pods, these modules. And we can afford. Well, not me, but I do, but I shouldn’t. People can afford to outsource the things that communal living used to do, like a nanny instead of a grandparent. And the nanny has to listen to you and not give your kid certain foods and not let your kid stay up late and not let your kid watch certain movies.

[39:08] Matt: Yes.

[39:08] Rory: The privilege of the nanny versus the grandparent.

[39:11] Matt: Yes. Unless you got one of those overbearing jewish nannies from queens or Mary Poppins life lessons. Yeah, actually, these nannies are always turning the house upside down.

[39:25] Rory: At least on tv, you didn’t know you needed it.

[39:32] Matt: Yeah, and that’s kind of the fantasy of the nanny, too, I guess. That’s the modern fairy tale, is that one of these employees we bought to replace what we used to get from community will end up bringing that magic into our home just by virtue of their sort of special personality.

[39:55] Rory: Yeah, absolutely. But since the, guess. What about communes, what does that feel like? These intentional communities is what I think they call them now. And I watched a video, like a vice video, I think it was about this place called Twin Oaks, where they make hammocks for pier one. And you stay there for ten years or not ten years. You can stay any amount of time, but the average day is ten years, and you have to work 40 hours a week, though, doing something like hauling the soybeans or something, processing the tofu, making the hammocks. But people really like living there. Obviously. They stay there like a decade, but it’s kind of the people you expect.

[40:45] Matt: Yeah.

[40:45] Rory: People for whom the burdens of individual life have become too much like.

[40:52] Matt: Israel was founded with these very collectivist, intentional communities, the kibutzim. And I’m reading a book about them right now. It’s just like. It’s really interesting. And it was very, first of all, they did this thing called the children’s house. The children lived separately from the parents, and I salute the attempt to try and figure out new ways to do things on this planet. But it doesn’t always work. And that did not always work. It wasn’t good for kids, it wasn’t good for parents. So eventually they stopped doing that. I think it’s against the law now.

[41:39] Rory: To do that, to let your kids house altogether, probably.

[41:46] Matt: Yeah. Like to have kids, see them with children’s houses anymore. But also, there seems to be something really nice about it, too. And in this book I’m talking about, they talk about these different. There were people who had, like, a creative. You could still be an artist, you could be a songwriter and big in your little community. There’s something nice about that localness and being connected to everyone and sort of having a small pond to swim in. Yeah, I think that’s another thing I want to talk about, the boundedness of the community, because you didn’t have to be president. You could be president of the work committee at the kibbutz. You didn’t have to be the biggest pop star in Israel. You could be the guy who’s known as writing really beautiful songs and singing. There’s. It feels like there’s a way that everyone can find their place in a small world, in a small pond where in a big world. Not necessarily.

[43:11] Rory: Yeah, absolutely. But doesn’t it get boring?

[43:15] Matt: I think it does get boring. Those communities don’t really. They still exist to a certain extent, but I guess how people want to live, ultimately, no.

[43:26] Rory: I guess my life is boring though, too. Come on.

[43:30] Matt: Yeah, our lives are boring.

[43:31] Rory: Yeah. It’s just not that it’s. Well, our lives are boring, but I also feel boredom. But I wonder if it’s not that we don’t want to live that way, it’s just that it’s too radical to live that way.

[43:49] Matt: What do you mean?

[43:50] Rory: Something like an industrial revolution to normalize such a shift like that, I think in the way we live. Foundational shift.

[43:59] Matt: Yeah. And that takes me back to that pod building. I was thinking, the first thing I thought when they were talking about the failure of that project, I was like, well, you can’t just upend the way people have lived forever and expect it to work. And then it’s like, actually, no, we do live in giant buildings in the sky. We do live crazy lives that bear no resemblance to the way humans used to live. And it works. But, yeah, it takes some sort of.

[44:29] Rory: But that was a byproduct.

[44:32] Matt: It’s a byproduct and it happens. You can’t always predict when it’s going to work and when it’s not when the children’s house is going to be a great idea and when it’s going to be a terrible idea. And that’s sort of the uncertainty of being a human.

[44:49] Rory: I want to talk about our pathetic forms of community that exist in the modern world that offer us nothing meaningful.

[45:00] Matt: Okay.

[45:00] Rory: Like the hoa.

[45:04] Matt: Yeah. Terrible. The idea that the bad and none of the good.

[45:09] Rory: Yeah. You have to have your hedges a certain height. And that’s the idea of community.

[45:14] Matt: Hedge height, paint color, terrible rules.

[45:20] Rory: And then there are people such pick a yoon rules. And there are people who like the Hoa and enforce the Hoa. It’s like when I was watching that Bama rush documentary, sororities. There we go. That’s a weird community to me, where.

[45:37] Matt: The HOA is sort of know. It’s all of the strictures of being in a really intense cult with none of the sex and drugs. What’s the point?

[45:49] Rory: Yeah, it’s like, who are these people who want to enforce things like hedge height? What’s wrong with you that you’re narking on your neighbors like a group of narcs, a formal group of narc.

[46:03] Matt: I mean, people love to be enforcers. I do, too, but just.

[46:09] Rory: But at least your enforcements are, like, mostly in the forms of, like, we’re together.

[46:18] Matt: Social. I’m a pro social enforcer today on the train, you know, I hate when people try to get on before people get off. This kid was so anxious to get on that he pushed the person who was getting off. Who was the person getting off? Literally a nine year old boy on crutches. It was like, you’re going to trample tiny Tim so you get a better seat on a 20 minutes train ride. Shame on you.

[46:46] Rory: It was seat fear. Fear of a bad seat.

[46:49] Matt: I think so. And you know what? There are plenty of seats.

[46:52] Rory: Yeah.

[46:53] Matt: So that’s pro social enforcing, in my opinion.

[46:56] Rory: And then the other form of modern community, I guess, is like corporate work community, especially when it takes place after or outside of work hours. Listen, if you want to do a community building thing during nine to five, I’ll show up and I’ll participate. But I’m not joining a softball team I work with. People you work with are people who you have to have a professional demeanor with. And I do that 40 plus hours a week to play a game where I’m also being professional. No. Drink wine, but not say anything too embarrassing that will help prevent me from getting promoted. No.

[47:46] Matt: Yeah. People seem to think that they can make work better by adding fun things. It’s like, no, just subtract. You make work better by asking us to be there less, not more, but fun this time.

[48:00] Rory: Yeah, 100%.

[48:02] Matt: Just tell me I don’t have to go. One day I’ll be psyched. I’ll feel close. I’ll feel connected.

[48:10] Rory: Or do I have to feel closer connected to where I work?

[48:13] Matt: No. I mean, yeah, that’s what they want. They want you to feel like some Sort of loyalty, but yeah, it’s like they’ll just lay you off if they ever need to. So it’s like, what point is there in even building a community when there can be no real trust?

[48:36] Rory: Yeah.

[48:36] Matt: When ultimately it’s just transactional at the end.

[48:40] Rory: Exactly.

[48:41] Matt: Now, if it was a different kind of workplace, like the other day, we got some paintings. Not paintings, but like some artwork framed, nice little frame store, mom and pop shop with some brothers working there. And then a couple of workers who seemed not to be related. Perfect setting for a sitcom.

[49:03] Rory: Yeah, for sure.

[49:04] Matt: The oldest brother is newly divorced and looking for love.

[49:09] Rory: Oh, yeah, you should write this.

[49:11] Matt: Just moved back to town.

[49:15] Rory: But what is he going to live? Is he going to live alone?

[49:19] Matt: No, I think he’ll move in with the family. It will be called frames. Yeah. I don’t know what it would be called. This is what I would like. Okay. I would like to live in cities that are smaller cities.

[49:35] Rory: Okay. You do?

[49:37] Matt: Yeah. I think Tel Aviv is a great sized city. I could honestly go smaller. And I think that having. I don’t want to live in a place where my community is all the people there, where the population of the place and my community are the same circle in the Ven diagram. I want my community to be one little circle within a network of circles. But if you’re in a place like Manhattan, there’s literally millions of circles, and then there’s a big circle, which is just too big. It’s too much, so small. And I think more people work remotely. I’ve always wondered, why doesn’t a group of friends move together to a place that’s not LA or New York?

[50:27] Rory: I don’t know. It seems like it’s like too big of a. Like, I don’t know. Is it too vulnerable to say we’ll be friends for life because we’re all moving to Minneapolis together?

[50:38] Matt: I know it’s like we’re not there yet, but I really wish we were there. I wish there was. I wish it was a thing. We’re going to go homestead in Minneapolis, a group of friends from college we’re picking a city and we’re going to do it. We’re going to get some apartments in the same neighborhood. We’re going to work remotely or not, whatever. We’re going to pay low rents because it’s, like, not the biggest city in the world. And we’re going to forge a functioning community within a small metropolis. That’s what I would love to see, because I think it’s kind of in the middle.

[51:19] Rory: It is in the middle. Friendship ties are looser ties, which is good because you can go out on a Tuesday night and not. I don’t like feeling the pressure of having to invite everyone all the time when I do something. Yeah, you feel that way?

[51:34] Matt: I don’t feel that pressure. But do you think that there was just an article in the Atlantic, like, what if we had put friendship at the center of social life instead of marriage? And you hear that from time to time. What if that was like, no, I kind of think the magic of friendship is that lightness that we’re talking about 100%.

[51:59] Rory: Because then it would just be marriage.

[52:02] Matt: Yeah.

[52:02] Rory: If friendship came at the center, then friendship is weightier. And then the issue is you have to have primary relationships, which are immediate family.

[52:17] Matt: Which are immediate family. I mean, I’m definitely into friends being amongst my primary relationships, but would we get a house together in Minneapolis? I think that’s a bit too much. Maybe not for a certain point time in life.

[52:36] Rory: Did you purposely say Minneapolis wrong.

[52:38] Matt: Minneapolis? No, I got lost in the word Indianapolis.

[52:51] Rory: I feel good now. Mr. Never pronounce a word wrong, Rory, or else I will say something. Listen, I love the unbearable lightness of friendship. I think it’s quite bearable, but meaningful. I mean, I have meaningful friendships. Very meaningful. Know you’re one of them. Did you know I consider you among meaningful.

[53:13] Matt: I consider you a friend. We’re not just work acquaintances through this podcast, but.

[53:22] Rory: There is an effort that comes with friendship that doesn’t come with other types of relationships that you’re born into or contractually obligated to.

[53:37] Matt: Wait. You think friendship is more effort than family?

[53:41] Rory: I think to have a close friendship. What’s the word I’m looking for at will? Effort is harder to sometimes find time for.

[53:52] Matt: I’m not sure if I find that to be so.

[53:54] Rory: Think other, not us. We don’t. But other people don’t have as close to friendships because they don’t take the time.

[54:00] Matt: Yeah. Don’t you think those people on friends seem the time?

[54:06] Rory: They all live near each other.

[54:07] Matt: I know that’s the thing that show could have been called roommates. It was really about the shifting roommate dynamics, though, when you really think about it.

[54:17] Rory: That’s true, but that was just a matter of it being easier to film.

[54:22] Matt: Yeah, but it ended up shaping the show in so many big ways and they all switch around so much that wasn’t necessary for the show. They could have kept them put and their characters shift so much depending on who they’re living with.

[54:38] Rory: Yeah, that matters. But anyway, yeah, I think friendships, because they’re optional, they require more pointed effort, and that’s why they can often slip through your fingers.

[54:53] Matt: Yeah.

[54:54] Rory: And that’s why long distance friendships are. Most people are not able to maintain them at the level that you and I have been.

[55:00] Matt: At the same time, though, if you and me were boyfriend and girlfriend, we’d be like, this obviously doesn’t work. We’re too far apart. But because we’re friends, it works.

[55:13] Rory: That’s true.

[55:14] Matt: Lightness of it is its strength.

[55:16] Rory: You know what’s funny, though? Whenever I see anything about in movies or tv shows where a couple has to be apart for a couple of months and they’re like, can we do it? I’m like, you guys are babies. A couple of months, who gives a ****?

[55:29] Matt: Oh, no, it’s hard. A couple months.

[55:32] Rory: Why? It’s a couple months for your whole life. I don’t know the nature of my relationship.

[55:38] Matt: I mean, I always felt like Jim and Pam, when she has to go to art school, are like, it’s a little silly how much they.

[55:45] Rory: That’s what I’m talking about. Things like that.

[55:47] Matt: Yeah, but you never know. The distance then feels vulnerable. You don’t have that person’s love in front of you.

[55:59] Rory: Is it monogamy?

[56:01] Matt: No, I don’t necessarily think it’s monogamy, but I think it’s about security in the relationship. I think it’s about missing. Just about missing and wanting to have.

[56:13] Rory: Missing a physical body.

[56:15] Matt: Yeah. Being bored.

[56:18] Rory: Yeah. Some couples it’s about being together. It’s not about talking. And so the phone really doesn’t work for them.

[56:25] Matt: I’ve had some long distance relationships where the phone calls were not working. Boring.

[56:35] Rory: Yes.

[56:35] Matt: Silences. Like talking to a second cousin. It’s like, wow, I guess we really needed the tv and the making out to make this work.

[56:53] Rory: Yeah. I mean, some people, their relationships are about being out there and experiencing the world together. We go to a place together. Maybe that sparks conversation where if it all just comes from your brain, that’s not going to fly.

[57:08] Matt: Yeah. Talking about your day.

[57:11] Rory: Anything more boring than having to hear about someone’s day?

[57:14] Matt: I know it’s rarely interesting a day. It’s just a more boring dream.

[57:20] Rory: Please, God, don’t tell me about anyone you work with. Please. No, don’t.

[57:27] Matt: So what would your ideal commune be, your ideal community?

[57:31] Rory: Well, I would like to live closer to our families, like Sam and I’s families, within a 20 minutes drive. That’s perfect. Community to me is family community, and then living in a neighborhood like I grew up in, in Chicago. Do we all love the way we grew up? If you didn’t have a traumatic childhood, do we all think we grew up in the best place in the world? Do you feel like.

[57:54] Matt: Not at all.

[57:56] Rory: Do you feel like you grew up in the best place in the world?

[57:58] Matt: No, I think I grew up in a non place with no community.

[58:06] Rory: Oh, okay. Well, I felt like I grew up in a strong community just by the nature of going to a local small school and just going to the same shops. And, I don’t know, knowing my neighbors, that’s my ideal community. Living alone, knowing your neighbors, doing favors for your neighbors, your neighbors, doing favors for you, and also being close to your immediate family.

[58:31] Matt: I guess we had that growing up, but because it was like one of these communities where people go, have kids, raise the kids, and then the whole community turns over. We didn’t talk about this, and we won’t open it up because it’s too much now. But it’s not just about the web of connections between the people. I think for me, it’s also important that there’s, like, a web of connections between the people, between the people and the place, and between the people and the institutions in the place. So I think I did grow up in a web of people, but the place itself felt very nondescript and, like, there was nothing really to be attached to. It could have been anywhere, and there were no real institutions to speak like. So you grew up in Chicago, which is like a real place that has some. There’s something there. And you went to a church growing up, didn’t you? Yeah, there’s that.

[59:39] Rory: Yeah, there is. Church is important for that. We talked.

[59:42] Matt: Yeah. I need love of know. That’s. I had such a hard time during my two year stint in Boston, even though I was in a community of people, but I really didn’t feel connected to the place, and I think that’s very crucial for me.

[01:00:02] Rory: I completely agree. You’re going to the same shops, you’re seeing the same shop owners every year. There’s this stupid festival in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I can count on it every year since I was a kid. You know what I mean?

[01:00:16] Matt: Yeah, those things are nice. The rhythms.

[01:00:20] Rory: Community.

[01:00:21] Matt: Is it how to be?

[01:00:23] Rory: I think we have gotten too far away from community. I don’t know if it’s how to be. Yeah. No. Yes. No. I do feel burdened, but I don’t have kids, so I’ll probably feel more burdened if I have kids.

[01:00:37] Matt: Yeah. I don’t think we should be going back, but I think we need to move forward. I think we need to figure out something, a better solution than the kibutz and the hoa and the Bama rush. We need to really figure out how to form healthy communities.

[01:00:56] Rory: Yeah. It’s not a priority. It’s an add on to existing institutions, like work or college life.

[01:01:07] Matt: Yeah.

[01:01:07] Rory: I think it could be prioritized. Better.

[01:01:11] Matt: College is a great community. I felt so the opposite of loneliness in college.

[01:01:20] Rory: Yeah. But sometimes you have to have these weird artificial communities, like sororities, which I think go too far.

[01:01:29] Matt: Yeah. What if there was, like, a Sarah Lawrence for adults, dorms, classes?

[01:01:37] Rory: You pay $50,000 a year to be there. That’s the rent.

[01:01:47] Matt: Yeah.

[01:01:47] Rory: You get ten meals a week for that, like we did.

[01:01:53] Matt: That’s all you need.

[01:01:54] Rory: Ten meals a week. What an interesting meals a week plan we had.

[01:01:58] Matt: Only a glutton would dare have more.

[01:02:02] Rory: All righty.

[01:02:03] Matt: Bye bye bye, Matt. Love you, dear.