>Western society promotes the propaganda that nothing is worth doing unless you are being paid for it.

I don't find this to be the case. Many people in my circle of friends see earning money as a means to an end. Hobbies and charitable works are held in high esteem.

I spend a good amount of time "working" on Church activities that have no financial benefit to me. Often times they consume funds not generate them.

My wife loves to sew, she creates items that would be much cheaper if purchased fully made but gets great joy from mastery of her craft.

I don't think anything you're saying disagrees with the author's point. People do work on hobbies, and charity, but the push from culture above is all about making money, getting in the grind, "how can you monetize that hobby?". It's not universal, but it is a strong push.

Perhaps this is an American culture as I don't ever hear this in NZ.

I don't know that it's only American culture, but it definitely is American culture.

I love this idea. I regularly send lengthly emails to old friends and would love to have a better structure for handling this in a small community. I'm currently part of a well moderated and decent tech community on Slack, but even there things get lost in the void, there are low-effort posts and comments, lurkers, and strangers.

Thanks for the food for thought.

Mind sharing the community?

I think this is a really beautiful little concept.

While I imagine this being very interesting for circles formed around some topic matter, I can also imagine this as a nice way to carry forward small friend groups.

I’m imagining socials circles that existed in college would be very nice in this format. A simple low pressure way to keep in touch while also continuing to learn with and from each other.

mailing lists (especially the private ones), in their heyday, were much like this, albeit less formal.