Freedom and belonging

For a long time I have known (though maybe not understood) that Freedom isn't having choices — it's choosing. By committing, by exercising choice and exerting agency over a situation, one flexes ones agency and manifests the value of having choices to begin with.

The most potent example I have found of this is sailing: with a sailboat, in principle at least, one could go anywhere. It's only by mustering the attention and resources and gumption to actually set sail, to commit to a destination, does one actually get there. And in making that commitment, in deciding, every other choice is literally physically excluded.

The alternative is to linger in the harbor, looking at atlases, thinking about where you could go. Or, maybe more relatable, scroll the Netflix landing screen, trying to figure out what to watch. At a certain point, you realize that what you're watching is the options scroll by, the landing-screen-as-a-movie — which I'd argue is the least satisfying movie of all.

It feels to me that my generation is more prone than prior ones to suffer from this "Atrium effect". In a world with an illusion of infinite choice (a logical conclusion derived from the constant presence of infinite scroll feeds — infinite ideas, infinite appealing images, infinite potential dating partners, infinite job opportunities) the persistent and pernicious feeling of "what if the next one is better?" too often overrides the impulse to choose, to watch, to marry, to commit. This is especially true in big cities, where there is enough depth to the local "markets" of things to attend to, that its easier to convince one's self of another, better opportunity just around the corner.

Oliver Burkeman writes about this very eloquently, if at times a bit opaquely. "Facing one's finitude", confronting the reality that we are finite creatures with infinite imaginations, requires us to admit that we will never have the ability to do or experience everything that is important to us, that we will always be missing out, and that there's a huge amount of relief to be found in just accepting where we are and what we're doing.

There's a closely related idea, though I haven't interrogated its relationship deeply: that of belonging. My intuition is that the illusion of infinite choice, and its consequent deferral of choosing, is a prime contributor to the loneliness epidemic affecting so many people. It strikes me that in this Harvard study, the loneliest group are 30-44-year-olds: the age where one is just coming to realize the consequences of not committing to choices like a partner or a career.

So, to what extent does choosing yield a sense of belonging (which to me is probably the real thing we want, and perhaps the opposite of loneliness)? What are the daily actions or habits one can cultivate to build a durable sense of belonging? What tactics lead to a strong sense of community? I suspect that in the coming years, a strong local community will prove to be one of the most important and valuable things to have for a fulfilling and safe life ...