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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,

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 https://ankit.fyi/about

zestyping 6y ago
I really enjoyed reading this article. Many of the ideas in it were already familiar to me, but the act of reading it was like a meditation, and putting those ideas all together in that beautiful form created a different frame of mind for me. Thank you. When I got to the very bottom, I read the postscript, which led me to your About page. I was shocked to learn that you work at Facebook. How is this possible, I wondered. Facebook is continually pouring enormous resources into getting us all to keep scrolling, to generate "that hollow feeling" you refer to, billions of times every day. It's a strong contender for the most effective destroyer, at planetary scale, of the consciousness and ability to connect with ourselves to which Being Alone is an ode. What a strange mystery this is!
- meagher 6y ago
  Wow. I came here to write the exact same thing after following the same path. You call it a “strange mystery,” I call it cognitive dissonance.
  - pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
    Cognitive dissonance, in addition to self-delusion.
  - termy 6y ago
    money and ego
  - neilparikh 6y ago
    It's possible the author is experiencing cognitive dissonance, but you should consider that maybe they've thought about the issue for a while, and come to conclusion that working at Facebook really is the best to achieve the goals they care about. They've worked on Tea With Strangers for 6 years, so I think it's very unlikely they haven't thought about this consciously, and just "deluding themselves", as another commentator suggests. Now, I'm guessing that it's an obvious conclusion to you that working at Facebook goes against the goals the author suggests, and hence you dismissed it as cognitive dissonance fairly quickly. So then question becomes, why is obvious to you while not to the author? My suggestion is the author is starting from a different set of axioms than you are, which leads to a different conclusion. I was able to come up with multiple axiom sets[0] that allow coming to the conclusion that working at Facebook is a positive way to achieve the author's goal, within about 5 minutes of thinking, so I think your conclusion is far from obvious. [0] - I don't necessarily agree with most (or any) of these. My point is more that these sets do exist.
    - ankitshah 6y ago
      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=23597561 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23601253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23601253
- ankitshah 6y ago
  > 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 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).
  - newswasboring 6y ago
    Facebook helps in #3 only for similarities, I see no feature of facebook which allows people to come "together across similarities and differences". In fact I would say by optimizing over similarities it contributes to creation of information silos and actively discourages even acknowledging anything different as valid. Thus, by partially helping with #3, it actually does more harm than good.
    - 6y ago
- wasmitnetzen 6y ago
  That's a bit too black-and-white, though, isn't it? Facebook (the company) is not just bad. I made some real friends through Facebook (the website) which I now meet offline, Instagram let's me keep up with friends on the other end of the world I can rarely meet in person, WhatsApp let's me talk to my family two countries over...
  - newswasboring 6y ago
    If we want to not think in black and white we will have to think on balance. Just because facebook allows some people to derive some value, it does not make it a value adding thing. In fact, it destroys more value by creating information silos. If you think on balance, at least the way I see it, facebook is a destructive force.
kiddico 6y ago
Do you have more questions you like to use for tea with strangers? I tried working through what my answer would be for them, and it felt like a good jumping off point for forced introspection. The one about a lie you tell often was particularly good lol.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  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.
  - zestyping 6y ago
    You might enjoy the Authentic Relating Games collected by Sara Ness at https://www.authrev.org/ https://www.authrev.org/. I've played a few and they have been deeply connecting.
- zestyping 6y ago
  One of my favourite conversation-deepening questions is "What's something you like about yourself that other people usually notice, and what's something you like about yourself that other people rarely notice?"
discordance 6y ago
Nice write up Ankit. Keep on writing and we'll keep on reading. Btw, thank you for posting this on the open web and not on Facebook.
- ankitshah 6y ago
  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 https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1263129158386765824
_nvs 6y ago
This really resonated with me – thank you for sharing, Ankit :)
Dragonai 6y ago
Loved the essay. You captured a lot of specific sentiments and emotional instances that I was pleasantly surprised to read because I related to them so deeply. Thanks so much for the piece!

zestyping 6y ago

I really enjoyed reading this article. Many of the ideas in it were already familiar to me, but the act of reading it was like a meditation, and putting those ideas all together in that beautiful form created a different frame of mind for me. Thank you. When I got to the very bottom, I read the postscript, which led me to your About page. I was shocked to learn that you work at Facebook. How is this possible, I wondered. Facebook is continually pouring enormous resources into getting us all to keep scrolling, to generate "that hollow feeling" you refer to, billions of times every day. It's a strong contender for the most effective destroyer, at planetary scale, of the consciousness and ability to connect with ourselves to which Being Alone is an ode. What a strange mystery this is!

meagher 6y ago
Wow. I came here to write the exact same thing after following the same path. You call it a “strange mystery,” I call it cognitive dissonance.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
  Cognitive dissonance, in addition to self-delusion.
- termy 6y ago
  money and ego
- neilparikh 6y ago
  It's possible the author is experiencing cognitive dissonance, but you should consider that maybe they've thought about the issue for a while, and come to conclusion that working at Facebook really is the best to achieve the goals they care about. They've worked on Tea With Strangers for 6 years, so I think it's very unlikely they haven't thought about this consciously, and just "deluding themselves", as another commentator suggests. Now, I'm guessing that it's an obvious conclusion to you that working at Facebook goes against the goals the author suggests, and hence you dismissed it as cognitive dissonance fairly quickly. So then question becomes, why is obvious to you while not to the author? My suggestion is the author is starting from a different set of axioms than you are, which leads to a different conclusion. I was able to come up with multiple axiom sets[0] that allow coming to the conclusion that working at Facebook is a positive way to achieve the author's goal, within about 5 minutes of thinking, so I think your conclusion is far from obvious. [0] - I don't necessarily agree with most (or any) of these. My point is more that these sets do exist.
  - ankitshah 6y ago
    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=23597561 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23601253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23601253
ankitshah 6y ago
> 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 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).
- newswasboring 6y ago
  Facebook helps in #3 only for similarities, I see no feature of facebook which allows people to come "together across similarities and differences". In fact I would say by optimizing over similarities it contributes to creation of information silos and actively discourages even acknowledging anything different as valid. Thus, by partially helping with #3, it actually does more harm than good.
  - 6y ago
wasmitnetzen 6y ago
That's a bit too black-and-white, though, isn't it? Facebook (the company) is not just bad. I made some real friends through Facebook (the website) which I now meet offline, Instagram let's me keep up with friends on the other end of the world I can rarely meet in person, WhatsApp let's me talk to my family two countries over...
- newswasboring 6y ago
  If we want to not think in black and white we will have to think on balance. Just because facebook allows some people to derive some value, it does not make it a value adding thing. In fact, it destroys more value by creating information silos. If you think on balance, at least the way I see it, facebook is a destructive force.

kiddico 6y ago

Do you have more questions you like to use for tea with strangers? I tried working through what my answer would be for them, and it felt like a good jumping off point for forced introspection. The one about a lie you tell often was particularly good lol.

ankitshah 6y ago
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.
- zestyping 6y ago
  You might enjoy the Authentic Relating Games collected by Sara Ness at https://www.authrev.org/ https://www.authrev.org/. I've played a few and they have been deeply connecting.
zestyping 6y ago
One of my favourite conversation-deepening questions is "What's something you like about yourself that other people usually notice, and what's something you like about yourself that other people rarely notice?"

discordance 6y ago

Nice write up Ankit. Keep on writing and we'll keep on reading. Btw, thank you for posting this on the open web and not on Facebook.

ankitshah 6y ago
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 https://twitter.com/ankitshah/status/1263129158386765824

_nvs 6y ago

This really resonated with me – thank you for sharing, Ankit :)

Dragonai 6y ago

Loved the essay. You captured a lot of specific sentiments and emotional instances that I was pleasantly surprised to read because I related to them so deeply. Thanks so much for the piece!