Luxume (Luxury Commune)

31 Jul, 2024

College dorm room --> renting with a few roommates in apt/house --> renting/buying house to live alone w/ partner

This is the typical progression amongst my friends and the majority of people in my generation in America. There is a progression of isolation that happens as people move through their life. Why does this happen? My theory is that it is because as people get older they get less accepting of other people's ways of being. This is the opposite of how I want to be. I want to be more and more accepting of other people. As I expand my understanding of life this happens naturally.

Things I learned while living with people at Kim's

• Separate entrance is needed so I can enter without pressure to socialize if I'm having a rough day and need space
• Separate socializing area that isn't the bedroom (can make bedroom smaller and use that space for this)

Inefficiencies in a typical house

• Bedroom size
  • the bedroom is for sleeping (and sex) only, shouldn't need to be any bigger than a king size bed + space to walk around it to change the sheets.
  • clothes storage and getting dressed should be in the bathroom, that way bedroom has no windows. bathroom needs as much natural light as possible ofc. Showering with direct sunlight on you is amazing.
• Living room/dining room/kitchen
  • People want to have space to host events in their home but this is quite rare and can easily be shared. In the commune setup the shared spaced will be reservable during the week and opened to all on the weekends. This will be a good balance of increasing utilization while still allowing each person to host their (external to commune) friends

Socializing is like Exercise

• Both are uncomfortable and sometimes inconvenient but it is clear that with exercise that it is worth this for the tremendous health benefits. Why aren't people treating socializing in the same way?
• Post workout glow, post good socializing session glow are similar
• You can go to the gym whenever to get a good workout in. Optimizing for removing as many obstacles/friction between you and the gym is directly correlated with how much you will end up working out. This is the same thing for socializing. The more barriers we put up to interaction the les we will do it. We need our common areas as open as a public gym is so we don't need to have to find time to schedule in something that is mandatory for our health.

Importance of Socializing

technology is making it easier and easier to isolate ourselves. The way to combat this is to change your environment. Optimizing your environment for spontaneous socializing is the cure to loneliness. Yes it is uncomfortable/inconvenient, usually things are that are healthy for you are. We can use technology in a way to maximize for both privacy/introvert space while increasing the opportunity for randomly having a good cathartic conversation.

The best conversations happen randomly. They are very hard to plan for. You need to create space for them, and then they just happen. The problem I am trying to solve is that society in USA is making it such that the only time socializing can occur is when planned. This requires significant logistical overhead and often doesn't line up with when you are physiologically feeling open and ready to socialize. Everyone knows what it is like to be stuck between listening to their body and following through on their dinner plans they made 2 wks ago not knowing there would be a fire at work. The solution to this is to allow for opportunistic socialization. Meaning that there is a place to go to socialize with others that requires no planning or logistics to setup. Currently that isn't feasible because:

• people (even close friends and sometimes romantic partners) are spread out physically
• the living room/kitchen doubles as the non-bedroom private space
  • unnecessarily large for 1 couple most of the time
  • requires cleaning/prep to host
  • stress added not wanting people to break/stain/make dirty "my stuff"

Misc Convos

Email to Sasona (a commune in Austin)

I am interested in learning more about Sasona! I found this because I value community and spontaneous social interaction but I am finding that as I go from a college dorm room to living with a few roommates to buying a house and living alone (as is the "typical" progression amongst my friends) that I am compromising on these values. I am so excited to see there is already a group of people who are challenging the norm!

Message to Cyrus about this idea

I have a theory that in the same way exercising makes you uncomfortable but you do it anyways for the health benefits…living with other people is uncomfortable and isn't convenient but it is a worthwhile investment because of the health benefits of a tighter nit community feeling.

Luxury Commune group chat convo, response to sharing bathroom

The primary goal with more tightly integrating people isn’t to make things cheaper, it is to maximizing opportunity for spontaneous social interaction while preserving each individuals privacy/introvert time. That is why I’m not for sharing a bathroom. that is giving up too much privacy/introvert time for a very small amount of additional spontaneous social interaction (you spend very little leisure time in your bathroom and sharing that space is inconvenient...needing to shower while someone is 💩).