I lived with large family during youth and only have fond memories. It was a warm and fostering environment. It gave me my confidence and balance.
I lived two years in boarding school and it was OK. I learned autonomy, methods, social abilities.
I lived 3 years mostly alone (sharing a large flat with one person). This was during study and gave me independence (mostly; I was still supported financially by my parents).
I fell in love, lived an intense relationship and built a family. Here I really matured and learned ups and downs that cannot be taught.
During all this time I had a fairly stable circle of friends and acquaintances (about 40 people, which is about the number of guests on our wedding reception). Some informal get togethers from during my flat sharing years developed into a monthly custom which always gathers 5 to 25 guests (somewhat random participation; some always some seldom, some on and off).
The key insight of this Discussion for me is Viliam_Burs comment (http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/j3q/happiness_and_productivity_living_alone_living/a2fe ) that there should be an outcome-oriented community. I do not really have that. I recently realized that I am missing a community that is challenging. The job is not really such a community for me (it is too small and not exactly challenging). LW is nice but an online community can go only so far.
I wondered whether an LW meetup (which I might organize) could provide that. Would you recommend that?
Or are meetups more of the first type? Is that an interesting side question? How do LW Meetups factor in the feelings vs. outcome dimension?
I would guess that most meetups are of the community-oriented type, and I think this is good—otherwise busy people would completely stop attending the meetups.
But there is an opportunity to explicitly create an outcome-oriented subgroup at the meetup. Ask people how many of them are willing to invest at least X hours (beware the planning fallacy) between now and the following meetup to participate on a group project. Then take these people aside and select a project that could be done with the available energy (again, beware the planning fallacy). Precommit to present your results publicly during the following meetup. Collect e-mails. Then use your rationality skills towards the outcome: plan specific tasks; track spent time using pomodoros in a shared document. Report in LW group diary when finished.
Somewhat introvert (INTJ), 40, Hamburg, Germany.
I lived with large family during youth and only have fond memories. It was a warm and fostering environment. It gave me my confidence and balance.
I lived two years in boarding school and it was OK. I learned autonomy, methods, social abilities.
I lived 3 years mostly alone (sharing a large flat with one person). This was during study and gave me independence (mostly; I was still supported financially by my parents).
I fell in love, lived an intense relationship and built a family. Here I really matured and learned ups and downs that cannot be taught.
During all this time I had a fairly stable circle of friends and acquaintances (about 40 people, which is about the number of guests on our wedding reception). Some informal get togethers from during my flat sharing years developed into a monthly custom which always gathers 5 to 25 guests (somewhat random participation; some always some seldom, some on and off).
The key insight of this Discussion for me is Viliam_Burs comment (http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/j3q/happiness_and_productivity_living_alone_living/a2fe ) that there should be an outcome-oriented community. I do not really have that. I recently realized that I am missing a community that is challenging. The job is not really such a community for me (it is too small and not exactly challenging). LW is nice but an online community can go only so far. I wondered whether an LW meetup (which I might organize) could provide that. Would you recommend that?
Or are meetups more of the first type? Is that an interesting side question? How do LW Meetups factor in the feelings vs. outcome dimension?
I would guess that most meetups are of the community-oriented type, and I think this is good—otherwise busy people would completely stop attending the meetups.
But there is an opportunity to explicitly create an outcome-oriented subgroup at the meetup. Ask people how many of them are willing to invest at least X hours (beware the planning fallacy) between now and the following meetup to participate on a group project. Then take these people aside and select a project that could be done with the available energy (again, beware the planning fallacy). Precommit to present your results publicly during the following meetup. Collect e-mails. Then use your rationality skills towards the outcome: plan specific tasks; track spent time using pomodoros in a shared document. Report in LW group diary when finished.