This is our "Independents" Day
Alex Hillman
This essay was originally published in the Indy Hall newsletter. If you’re not already subscribed, you can sign up here.
While I can’t hold a torch to Bill Pullman’s speech from the 1996 film by the same title, I have been thinking about the ways that independence can actually bring us together.
Right now, cities across the country — including Philadelphia — are buzzing with World Cup energy. Groups of strangers are crowding into bars, parks, and living rooms to watch matches together.
People who’d never share a table any other day are suddenly side by side, experiencing the same thing in real time.
Sound familiar?
Independence is usually framed as a solo act. Go your own way. Make your own rules. Build something on your terms.
For some, that’s freelancing and entrepreneurship. For others, it’s the freedom to simply choose where you work, and the people you work alongside.
All of these experiences reveal something we know to be true, and yet feels counterintuitive enough that we often need help remembering:
Independence is better together.
In 2006, I found a group of freelancers and independent workers who together realized that working alone made work harder.
Not because we needed a boss or a team, but because we needed people to eat lunch with. To bounce ideas off. To celebrate wins with. To sit with when things are hard.
That’s what “Indy” in Indy Hall actually means. Not independence as isolation. Independence as a choice — and then immediately turning around and choosing each other.
I’ve loved seeing countries and cultures bond over the last few weeks as people from around the globe found new adopted homes and communities. Scotland in Boston. South Korea in Mexico. Global citizens falling in love with Philadelphia for the first time.
The world is still messy and painful. But when we choose to be together, everything gets a little bit better.
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