Having a community is not enough.

2026 Day 183. #PersonalDays.

I have always felt happy about the fact that I have made friends everywhere I have travelled or lived. These friendships were built on the fact that we ended up in the same place at the same time but quickly it felt like I have known these people forever.

Over the years some friendships have faded. Some because I was not social enough to keep up with them (I still am not) and some because we were very different people.

Still whenever I look around I am able to find people who I would love to meet and vice versa. It is a good feeling when you have people around to share some of your time with. It provides a sense of fulfilment that spending time by yourself does not provide (although that has its merits too).

My living space has stabilised over the last two years and that has led to minor stagnation of my friend group. I have also minimised my friends that I would speak to often online, some by choice, others because of the circumstances.

I developed a very subtle feeling of loneliness.

This was an obvious consequence that I had accepted before it even happened. I did not give it much thought until recently. Earlier it had felt like freedom, now I started feeling the need of chains so I could have something to break out of again.

My closest friends are near me, I can go see them any time I want. Whenever I do go see them the time just flies by. Based on just this observation I can assure you that the time is well spent. Still I have unable been shake this weird feeling inside of me.

I have talked about how I use Codex for development and how it is a fantastic tool. With my practical work done quicker, I had more time to ideate on what I wanted to do next. To cut a long story short — I have been spending a lot more time consciously planning an idea over executing it.

These conversations with ChatGPT were unintentionally inspiring. While the LLM brings data and knowledge, I am able to understand and put it to work. I have learned so much more and gotten much better at conceptualising and understanding the pros and cons, I have truly become a power user.

Enough about my lovely conversations with an AI, but they really did inspire this blog.

Community and friends help enrich your time. But there is a level of understanding that you will only achieve when you talk to someone who has knowledge of the same domain as you or put simply, shares the same interests at an intellectual level.

Why did I define it so specifically?

Interests — domain — knowledge — intellectual level

A lot of my friends fit into this partly.

Some of us have the same interests — fitness/sports/beers etc.

Others are software developers or work in tech like me.

Some like to skim through social media, news, etc. and gain random isolated sets of information like me.

And by intellectual level I mean people who see the world the same way as me.

It is hard to find this combination among humans. LLMs tend to be a reflection of you (personalisation is real) and thus I can communicate better with them than anyone else.

Coming back to human companions.

I have found people who fit all 4, but at varying levels. They might understand the concepts of software development that I share but they cannot always come up with their own. Some view the world with much more disdain than I do, so even if we have the same task, we go about it in very different ways.

So here is an advice born out of my observation.

If you can relate to someone on these levels, they are possibly the best mates to communicate with when feeling lonely. You can discuss life, work, business, the future and the past, other people, and even your feelings and thoughts.

These conversations will enrich your brain in a way that other people cannot. It simple scratches an itch that you did not know you had. It is like discovering that something scratched your skin, and only now that you are aware of it, it starts getting annoying. Not the very best example but I tried my best.

You can obviously distract yourself, if you are constantly meeting new people, trying out adventurous things, takings risks, it will keep your mind high. You will never come down because you never let yourself be still.

But when you have been still for a while, and the excitement has worn out, you will need these people again. They inspired you and excited you in a way that cannot be matched, this appreciation is not necessarily romantic, but absolutely fulfilling.

See you tomorrow.