When Community Stops Being Necessary

Choosing connection in a world that makes it easy not to

I became a single mom on purpose.
I travel full-time by choice.
And still, I think about community and connection constantly.

Right now, we’re staying with new friends in rural West Virginia, not because they’re blood family or neighbors or people we bump into at school pickup or the grocery store. We’re here because London built this connection intentionally himself. He met this boy at a camping event we do in Northern New Hampshire every summer. I only briefly connected with the mom at the end of the week, but I trusted London when he told me this was an important connection to treasure.

I've modeled that for him his whole life. I’ve spent years doing community differently. I’ve always been an organizer, bringing people together around the things that light me up. That was Latin dance in my 20s. Play events in my 30s.

But different is usually messy.
There’s no to-do list. No built-in rhythm.
No default setting.
No “you live next door, let’s be friends” energy.

I grew up in rural Alaska in the ‘80s and ‘90s. There was still a deep sense of community back then, especially among the older generation. My dad’s neighbor helped him drill our well. He helped that neighbor frame his house. That kind of mutual support wasn’t extraordinary, it was just how things worked. It was a necessity. People were on homesteads, building from nothing. You couldn’t just pop down the road to the convenience store.

That energy still ran deep in Alaska when I left over twenty years ago, and I’m sure it still lives on in parts of it now. But even as a kid, I could feel the shift beginning. The rhythms of modern life were already starting to replace that deep interdependence. And I think that loss is something a lot of places have felt, not just where I’m from. Whenever we travel through rural America, I still feel that old energy in certain places. And it’s beautiful.

I’ve tried to keep that spirit alive. Slowly. Intentionally.
But I won’t lie, it’s exhausting work.
I think that’s part of why I’m so drawn to roadschooling and worldschooling.
It attracts people who want to build something different.

Because in today’s world, you don’t really need community anymore.
You have to want it.

The one time we still recognize it as necessary is during those early years of parenting, when becoming a parent turns everything upside down. But even that fades. The kids get older, life speeds up, and it gets harder and harder to maintain.

We can meet all our needs through money and services.
We can buy food, rent shelter, outsource education, hire help, scroll for emotional support.
Everything that used to require other people… doesn’t anymore.

Community used to be necessary, because in places like Alaska, it was often a question of survival.
Now it’s optional.
And once something stops being necessary, most people stop fighting for it.

We forget how to navigate difference.
We forget how to repair.
We forget how to be uncomfortable, or how to show up when it’s inconvenient.
We forget what it feels like to actually need each other.

I saw someone recently say the future might include people marrying AI.
And while that sounds extreme… it doesn’t sound impossible anymore.

If we’ve already outsourced our survival, our education, our care, our friendships, what’s left?

Maybe the better question is:
What are we still willing to build, even when we don’t have to?

I don’t have a clean answer.
But I know this life we’re building, the one where we show up on purpose, where we make time, where we travel to the people we care about instead of relying on convenience, it’s harder.
And it’s worth it.

Because community isn’t a luxury.
It’s a human need.
And it’s one I’m not willing to forget.

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