According to the book The Seasons of a Man's Life by Daniel Levinson, one of the most reliable timings in a man's development is that of "settling down". With very few exceptions, at some point between ages 31 and 34, quite a deep hunger will emerge for a sort of high-score of stability. One wants to take certain ways in which one is circling, or facing the same problems again and again, and find a (relatively) final solution for them. Commitment is a huge theme here, whether to a place, a partner, or a career.
I started reading this book a few months ago, and that part fits eerily well. Turning 35 this month, the last few years have been an increasingly determined attempt to find that sort of stability. Having lived in different parts of the world, and visited Estonia for a few months just before Covid took its toll, I was very tired of moving, and Estonia had become more and more like a promised land to me, somewhere I could see myself committing to.
For me, Estonia had become so symbolically tied to this desire to settle down, that by the time I finally got my year-long D-visa last January, I remember my hands were shaking just a bit as I texted my new landlord saying that I was ready to officially sign the lease and move in. It was an incredible relief, to walk around Tallinn and rest easy in the knowledge that I'd be here for at least one year, and likely a good portion of my life.
But as humans, settling down is only partially about moving into a stable physical space. Much more important is to find one's community, to form relationships with people that last over time. We are fundamentally social creatures, and the stability of one's psychological and emotional state are deeply tied to the stability of one's community.
The best coworking spaces understand that this need is fundamentally what they're selling to. In these places, the vibe speaks for itself. The brochure might spend more space on things like desk space, free coffee, and opening hours, but the deep emotional sell depends more on whether your inner monkey sees a warm community it might come to belong to.
Lift has made my inner monkey happy, as well as the human wrapped around it. First you get the camaraderie of just being around the other monkey-people, like you would at a cafe. But the difference is the stability of the community. You get to know your desk neighbors or the people who get coffee when you do. People celebrate their occasions in the kitchen, whether it be startup milestones or a goodbye to a long-standing member of the Lift community.
There are other things, too, that one gets from the particular social scene of a good coworking space like LIFT99, which I'll write about in the next piece. But the simple fact of being in a community is really the core of it.
To me, it's like LIFT99 is a greenhouse and I'm a little sapling growing my social roots into a well-sized pot, in early spring, about to be transplanted into the earth outside. It's only now that I'm forming warm, closer relationships outside of Lift, and perhaps that would have been still harder if I hadn't had the stability of Lift in the first place.
Looking forward to the continuation of my Estonia journey, I have a new understanding of those people that pop into LIFT99 for social visits: LIFT will always be a foundational part of my Estonia journey, even after I've left some months or years from now. It's the greenhouse where my first green shoots popped up and started breathing this lovely Estonian air, firmly rooted in the community only hinted at to my inner monkey on my first visit.