Why I'm dying for friendship and community
Its all David Brooks' fault!
Summary: My recent book; “Dying for Friendship and Community: Two old friends attack loneliness” cites some important lessons about how to mitigate the loneliness crisis and the importance of social connection for organizations and individuals. Beyond the written words is a software company with some unique capabilities to connect humans at events and in communities. Both the founders are seniors, combining a 38-year friendship with 2 lifetimes of social connection and interaction. I’m committed to attacking loneliness until it is gone or I am gone.
As we (me and my cofounder Johan Wikman) wrote the book, I kept coming back to “David Brooks’ Second Mountain: How to Lead a Moral Life” and realized that making the world a more socially connected place would enable the people that we touched to be happier and have a more fulfilling experience. Almost uniformly, all the longevity people promote extending and nurturing social circles. This mission, adopted as I approached my 70th birthday, has given me a renewed sense of purpose and resolve.
Why would I need a new mountain to climb? I have had a great life both personally and professionally over the years. Like most people, there have been substantial ups and downs, but the ups have always triumphed. I’m grateful every single day for the friends I’ve made and the adventures that I’ve experienced.
I have had 4 mini-retirements of 6 months and a great paid sabbatical courtesy of Autodesk, who was one of the early adopters of this fantastic benefit. It’s given me the chance to travel and reflect on what’s important. (It also gave the chance to determine that golf wasn’t important and that fly fishing was, but that is an entirely different article!) I’ve also learned that working on what you love to do is not really work, and that fun can be incorporated any time. Physical restrictions have largely evaporated, I’ve done some great work waiting for a doctor’s appointment using non-addictive tools that go with me wherever that is a cell signal.
If any of these points touches you, I’d pick up David Brooks’ book and take a read. You might also look at Arthur Brooks (no relation as far as I know) new book: The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness just released in late March.
If you are reading this, friendship and community must have an inherent appeal. I’d encourage you to get involved at the grass roots level and help your community be more connected. Foster introductions and community events that span generations, incomes, political opinions; anything that will bring people together who want to meet someone new. Our approach is to find common interests in advance which help soften the awkwardness of cold introductions or stilted icebreakers.
If you want to join in with our mission, send me an email at pete@perdata.ai We welcome all to help with our mission.
Originally published on Substack on 4/8/2026. https://getconexus.substack.com/p/why-im-dying-for-friendship-and-community