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Finding Home

Read about this concept of  a traveling village and found it quite interesting. If this way of living works for atleast some of the families of the set of twenty, then chances are they could try in again. There may be a path for that group to buy homes in the same area (minding the walkability rule) and stay together as a village. I ran into a Reddit thread recently where new-comers to my town (30s and up) were be-moaning the lack of options to get to know new people, form real friendships. I can relate to that and used to think it had to do with me being an immigrant from India. But these folks are just transplants from other states in the country that did not live my town for many generations. They seem to face the same difficulties I did. 

The the vast majority of friends I started out with when I first got here, moved out to more exciting destinations for better professional opportunities. The rest drifted away when the trajectory of our personal and professional lives started to diverge, we had less and less in common to support any meaningful conversation. The parents of J's friends through the K-12 years faded out as the friendships between our kids did. So in about a couple of decades, the pool had completely dried out. I am much in the same boat as these new arrivals, just that clocking the years has not given me any advantage over them. The issue maybe not even be unique to this town and it makes sense that ideas like the traveling village would take root. 

People need community and getting involved in a serious, long-term relationship with all the baggage that it entails may not be everyone's idea of how to find it. The community that comes as a byproduct of marriage or relationship is also not one of your choosing or one that you want to be any part of. The partnership even if near perfect works only between the two people if the relationship, it cannot work nearly as well with the full cast of characters that come along from both sides. If it were actually pick a village of your own, that would be quite an Utopia.

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