ankitshah

You might like this address by Nipun Mehta called, "Paths Are Made for Walking": http://www.dailygood.org/story/236/paths-are-made-by-walking...

Didn't mean for this to turn into a back and forth or debate about FB, but I don't get the sense that you and I are working off of similar bases of information. I do think the matter is a little more nuanced than you're suggesting though.

Beautifully put.

I wrote a little about this on my website [here](http://ankit.fyi/about). You might enjoy this passage in particular related to your idea that you cannot prove:

> I think misunderstanding as an epidemic is rooted in how we’ve learned to consume information and how we haven’t learned how to digest it. This is one of the reasons I’m excited about the Internet, social media culture, and how we choose to express ourselves and connect with one another.

> I also think the best way to consume and digest information is through real human interaction. Even better if it’s with a non-judgmental lens of curiosity in understanding why people are the way they are, but it’s still pretty great when it’s just shooting shit about a common interest or sharing an experience.

> I have a dream that one day, Internet interactions will fuel more human interactions. That our default behavior will be to use this amazing access to information that we have to learn more, connect dots in constructive ways, understand others more deeply, and maybe even to grow more open minded to who each of us can become.

> Right now, though, the Internet feels like a place where people are throwing food at each other and taking shits on the sidewalk. I think we can do better.

Thanks for jumping in here Neil (and for doing your homework on my background :)

I wrote a little bit more about this in these comments:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23597561

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23601253

FWIW, I don't believe that any feature explicitly designed to help people come together over differences would be one that would see much use, despite its positive intentions.

It's a well trodden hypothesis that Facebook optimizes for similarities, but I don't know if it's that straightforward.

Something that might be worth considering is what kinds of interactions are enabled by Facebook for any given person—who they are between, what the substance of the interactions are, etc. For example:

- I communicate with my friends, family, and extended network of people I've met over the course of my life (college, work, travel, projects, etc.) with my profile, News Feed, and Messenger

- I buy and sell random products on Marketplace

- I engage with communities of people over shared interests, identity, causes, initiatives, etc. on Groups, with Fundraisers

- I read news and updates from publishers I subscribe to on Pages

- (This list isn't exhaustive, but you see my point...)

In a way, it's a wide ranging social infrastructure—like a digital city. In some of those interactions, you meet people who are similar to you (and you _want_ that). In others, you meet people who you wouldn't ever imagine yourself communicating with, but you've found a context that you share some kind of edge that brings you together. By exposing yourself to people different from yourself on vectors that actually bring you together, you also expose yourself to their perspectives, worldviews, and lives.

Of course, I'm not naive into believing that every person's experience on Facebook mirrors this diverse, multi-faceted exposure to people both similar and different from oneself. For some people, the experience might just be a big reflection and validation of their worst instincts, but this isn't actually as frequent as people think. There _are_ ways to build product that enable people to find an experience that is expansive to their lives instead of constraining of it, and as much as it may not seem to be the case, I do think Facebook consistently moves in that direction as it continues to grow and evolve.

I'm sure you'll find many articles and essays on solitude, connection and self knowledge that are efficient enough for your taste.

I don't know that reading 6000 words on the subject suits everyone :)

Great question (and thanks for commenting!)

I think I hit on the point in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23596448

I aimed to make this essay as easy to digest as possible, and part of that effort involved eliminating labels, ideas or phrases that might have a lot of inconsistent associations across different readers' minds (e.g. "mindfulness")

Thanks for explaining! I entirely agree. We all have many versions of ourselves, and they are all still us! I'm of the mind, however, that who we are when we are alone serves as a starting block around which our many other facets form.

Means the world to read this Jack. Thanks so much for the kind comment. I'd love to know what parts of the essay resonate with you, what stuck, etc.

Please feel free to reach out to me on email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) or twitter.com/ankitshah

I think you're onto something here ;)

An earlier draft of this essay had a whole section about communing with nature and what it meant to go for a quiet walk by yourself.

At its core, this whole essay is an ode to paying attention to yourself, and part of paying attention to yourself is paying attention to the environment that you are a part of—the space around you, the sounds you hear, the stimuli affecting your thoughts, etc. etc.

You might enjoy this little idea I've started called the Silent Hike Society. It's exactly what it sounds like, but here's an explainer: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/180405719200378...

You may also resonate with this meditation on walking that I made a while back: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/178469900116070...

Plenty more. I've written maybe 200-300 questions over the years (and asked thousands more).

I'm thinking to publish more of them in a neat and useful format soon for easy access and use. Should be ready in the next 2-4 weeks.

If you'd like to be notified when I do, my email list on the site might be the best bet (or just following me on twitter @ankitshah). Not sure I'll remember to come back to this thread to post.

Thanks so much. I have a little email list on the site if you'd like to stay in touch. Haven't used it for much just yet, but hope to make it a starting point for good email conversations.

I think Facebook is great for posting specific kinds of thoughts/content. I think a blank canvas worked best for Being Alone though.

You might enjoy these thoughts I wrote some weeks back about personal sites: https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1263129158386765824

> the act of reading it was like a meditation

What a beautifully put comment. Means the world to me that you felt so.

RE: Facebook

I too have many feelings about what FB's position in the world is, and I know that there's lots of work to be done in steering the (very large) ship in a direction that is more generative and also less destructive.

I also know that if the right people aren't doing that steering, well, then the right people aren't doing the steering. It may be hard to imagine a reality in which the employees of a social media giant sincerely care for creating deep, meaningful interactions online, but, indeed, it's true. There are a lot of people who are working hard to create the infrastructure for connection that is both deep and wide.

Of course, there's plenty of nuance to be dissected here, and a Hacker News thread is probably not the best venue for that conversation, but I will share this about my own vantage point:

I think of what I might be able to contribute to the world through the lens of 3 levers/inquiries:

1. How can I make it easier for people to get in touch with themselves, to understand and act on their agency?

2. How can I bring people together to see one another more wholly, with greater understanding and generosity?

3. How can I create systems that enable more people to find their people, to bring them together across similarities and differences, and in so doing, systemically increase the likelihood of #1?

"Being Alone" might move the needle on #1. The work I do at Facebook may move the needle on #3. Building Tea With Strangers (http://www.teawithstrangers.com) hits #2 on the head.

Just my 2c. Might not work or make sense to everybody, but it's how I've leveraged myself to do something that I feel is meaningful in the world.

I'd be happy to discuss more directly. Feel free to email me, text me (my number is available on the essay itself), or stay connected over Twitter (where I talk more about these nuances often).

You're right! So much of this essay can find a mirror in Vedic, Jain, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies (and numerous other schools of thoughts and philosophies). I don't think my ideas here are original.

My hope was that this essay would find resonance amongst those who might have difficulty connecting with these ideas in more religious, spiritual, or philosophical contexts. It was one of my goals while writing this to make it as accessible and plainspeak as possible.

I'm sorry you're disappointed by the fact that I said "FaceTime" three times in a 6000 word essay about connection with oneself.

The essay is not predicated on you using Facebook, having an iPhone, using FaceTime, Zoom, or any specific program, but I think that'd be pretty clear to you if you read it before commenting.

If you are still skeptical about reading it, this twitter thread has thoughts and reviews of dozens of people who have actually read it: https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1264982479489732608

My hope with the essay was primarily to provide a language, articulation and case to support the exploration of a relationship with self, but I definitely think it could use more substance in the area of "how to."

Would love to know more of what you think though!

What else do you think would be helpful that's missing from this? I've been thinking about writing something to supplement the essay with further resources, frameworks, and more tactical support for people who want to dig deeper into the essay.

(Also thx for the heads up about the link! The site is up, but the link was bad. Fixed it. Should be properly pointing to http://www.teawithstrangers.com now)

:) Happy to know that this exceeded your expectations.

The passage you shared is beautiful, but it's not quite registering how the essay evoked it for you. Can you say more?

Btw - thanks for the flag on the SSL error. Fixed the URL and it should be properly pointing to http://www.teawithstrangers.com now

Wow, this is a really thoughtfully written page. Thanks for sharing it Pamar. I'll want to take some time to really digest your writing and synthesis of others' perspectives on the topics.

Really kind of you. Thanks for saying so.

Echoing bobbiechen — it's Squarespace, and this essay was designed as a page, not a blog post, which provided increased flexibility in the design, etc.. It's super robust if you break out of the standard templates.

Hi there! Ankit here, the writer of Being Alone. Thanks so much for sharing this on HN. Appreciate the kind comments and thoughtful reflections here.

Honestly, I didn't anticipate that my writing would find its way to HN—and certainly not the front page—so this is really a pleasant surprise. (By the way, if OP is seeing this, I'd love to know how you found the essay + also thank you directly for thinking to post it here.)

If I can answer any questions about the essay, loneliness and connection more broadly, the practice of being alone, the website, Tea With Strangers (or anything else, really, I'm here for it :).

I'm also reachable at by email (ankit@teawithstrangers.com) and twitter.com/ankitshah. More about me and my background here: https://ankit.fyi/about

That's probably why they put together the content in the form of a collection of interviews. They don't establish authority of knowledge. They establish authority of intelligent curiosity.

I think this passage actually addresses the context of that question:

>The difference between empathy and compassion is big. Empathy is understanding the pain. Compassion is about taking away the pain away from others, it’s about solving the problem. That small subtle shift is the difference between a data scientist that can tell you what the graph is doing versus telling you what action you need to do from the insight. That’s a force multiplier by definition.

Hey jqm,

I'm so sorry this is something you thought you had to outline.

I do think it's worth noting that everyone has a lot of quality when you actually believe them into it (also known as Pygmalion Effect [see http://psych.wisc.edu/braun/281/Intelligence/LabellingEffect..., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect])

One of the reasons we keep a curated community of hosts is because we think a lot of our belief in others is a function of situational notions of normalcy. Good hosts create a sense of norm by being the first to take that leap of faith on the people around them. What does taking that leap of faith look like? Welcoming strangers with double high fives, looking them in the eye when they talk, asking questions with a genuine interest in what the others have to say, and trusting them enough to share oneself with them, for starters.

These norms set the environment on fire. It's what makes the air at anything Tea With Strangers different from the air in most gatherings of strangers. Breathe it in for a little bit and everyone begins to find interest in each other because layers that make people 'strangers' begin to get peeled very quickly. That is, unless you're holding your breath.

Quality people believe in the quality of people in mind and in action. And that's one of the reasons we think TWS works. Because it attracts people who don't hold their breath. Upward spiral!

High fives, Ankit

P.S. Quality might sound snobby, so let me qualify:

Everyone is smarter about something than you are.

Everyone has been motivated to do something you haven't.

Everyone laughs at something. It's one of the two more fundamental human emotions (i.e. babies either laugh or cry when they express emotion. This isn't lost as we grow.).

Everyone has an interest in themselves because we want to be taken care of (see: Maslow's Hierarchy), but sometimes people have circumstances that make them distrustful of others. You have an opportunity to empathize and understand that there's a reason for that that are beyond your understanding unless you take interest in others without wanting to take unfair advantage of them yourself.

Everyone's mind is as open as their life's circumstances have conditioned them to be. If and when you interact with someone – even if by sharing physical space – you are a part of their life's circumstances.

Everyone is interesting.

We're missing you Shane! Still remember seeing your facebook post. I think that was Alex's first tea time, and she had great things to say about your group! Bring some of your freshness back to the table brother.

(Also next time I'm in New York, come to one of my tea times. Would be cool to exchange high fives. Maybe a hug if I'm real lucky.)

All about breaking down the barriers that exist between us. The grander vision is to create systems that make our cities feel more like neighborhoods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYcX534JqG4

Perhaps for those who are a little more Anglophilic :)

But generally, no. Haven't had any trouble on this front, thankfully!

Great point about the chicken and egg problem. We try really hard to ensure we have preexisting interest in a city before launching, and we make sure we have a core group of hosts to lead the charge in expanding, spreading the word, and, of course, hosting tea time. Most important, however, is that the hosts actually feel a sense of togetherness when this happens, so we place a huge emphasis on a host community before anything else.

I love tea with strangers too!

Golden.

Great point. Fixing that!