Hyper-Individualism Is a Hell of a Drug
Reflections on the decline of community
I’ve been travelling around Australia, staying in small towns, and something keeps surprising me—people are really friendly.
The other day, I was sitting in Orbost, a tiny town in East Gippsland, having a coffee with my boyfriend. A man sitting nearby caught our eye and smiled. That was it. A simple, human gesture. And just like that, a conversation unfolded—an easy, relaxed, community-like conversation with no agenda, no awkwardness, just a natural flow of words between strangers.
And it struck me how novel that felt.
It shouldn’t be novel. It should be normal. But instead, it felt like something from another time. And that makes me sad. Because if the most basic elements of human connection—eye contact, conversation, friendliness—now feel rare, what does that say about the society we’ve built?
The Religion of Radical Independence
We were sold the idea that freedom means never having to rely on anyone. That success means leaving your hometown, prioritising career over community, and being self-sufficient. Dependence on family, neighbours, or even friends? Weakness.
We believed the lie.
We built a world where it’s possible to live entirely alone, order food via an app, communicate through screens, and spend years in a city without knowing a single neighbour’s name. And we wonder why people are lonelier than ever.
The cultures that emphasise collectivism over radical independence? They’re happier. They live longer. Meanwhile, we in the hyper-individualist West are drowning in loneliness and burnout, pretending we’re fine while scrolling through Instagram to watch other people pretend they’re fine too.
We Replaced Real Community With Fake Ones
Once upon a time, the town square, the church, the local pub, and the neighbourhood itself were the heart of social life. People had spaces to gather, to belong, to share in each other’s lives.
Now? Those institutions have either disappeared or been gutted beyond recognition.
The church pew has been swapped for the influencer livestream. The village for an online echo chamber. The Friday night pub for doomscrolling in bed.
And here’s the kicker—these replacements feel like community, but they’re not. Online groups can be great. They can be supportive, informative, even life-changing. But they shouldn’t replace real-world relationships. The depth of a community isn’t measured in comment sections or DMs—it’s measured in the people who show up for you when you need them, in the homes you can walk into without knocking, in the hands that help carry the weight of life alongside you.
A thousand Instagram likes don’t hold the same weight as one friend showing up at your door when you need them. A career can’t hug you. A political movement won’t drop off soup when you’re sick.
We’ve replaced deep, rooted connection with surface-level engagement, and we’re suffering for it.
How We Fix It
The answer isn’t turning back the clock. Modernity is here, and we’re not going to abandon technology or move back into multi-generational villages overnight. But we can make better choices.
• Prioritise real-world relationships. Call people. See friends in person. Introduce yourself to your neighbours. It sounds small, but it’s everything.
• Accept that self-sufficiency is a myth. Relying on others isn’t weakness; it’s human. Find your people and invest in them.
• Create local spaces. The world doesn’t need more Twitter debates. It needs more community centres, more farmers’ markets, more places where people can just exist together.
• Reject the idea that career is everything. Your job can be important, but it will never love you back.
Hyper-individualism is a hell of a drug. It promises autonomy but delivers isolation. It tells us we’re free while making us more disconnected than ever.
I don’t want a life where a smile from a stranger feels rare. I don’t want a world where people only interact through screens. Online villages can be a great addition to our lives, but they shouldn’t be our lives.
I want what I saw in that tiny café in Orbost—a simple, human moment that reminded me of how things should be.
And I think, deep down, we all do.