I miss old-school hangin out

During my summer internship at East Carolina University, our dorm rooms were kinda small, which is fine. But because of this, often I'd go sit in the first floor lobby - I guess the living room of the dorm? I'm not sure what it is called. After a few weeks of being there, two friends and I got into a routine of going down there at around 9:30pm most days. It turns out I would miss this way more than I thought.

At first I didn't notice it, but soon I started to really look forward to hangin out. But "hangin out" is not a good descriptor. When I think of hangin out, I imagine people on their phones, watching TV/YouTube, drinking, or any other versions of entertainment and/or substance. By this I mean people are distracted, and there is only room for a shallow level of connection. To be clear, this normal form of hangin out is perfectly fine. But what we did was different.

Us three would sit down and do some unusual combination of light work, reading, or talking. If we needed space and silence, it was there, but if we needed connection, that was available too. And when I got to truly connect with these two, they were wonderfully complex and interesting people. Through the normal form of hangin out, I probably wouldn't have gotten to understand them as well as I did - which would have been unfortunate. It wasn't until after I left that I realized how much I missed this.

This makes me wonder what life was like before the individuality that technology enables. Like what did Benjamin Franklin do with his evenings? I imagine he did something like what we did at ECU, similarly devoid of entertainment or substance. I would be happier if these old-school hang outs were still in my life. Maybe you would be too.

In Cupertino, California, sits an 18-room so-called Rainbow Mansion. A group of 20 to 30 year old space start-up friends rent this place to their colleagues and people like themselves in lieu of individual apartments. In its heyday about 10 people lived there at a time. I'd like to live in something similar sometime soon. Obviously I'd like to be around super smart people who are interested in similar things as me: building stuff. But also, there is probably a hell of alotta connection there. I wonder if they spend their evenings doing light work, reading, or talking.