We know how to be productive. We have forgotten how to be relational. Oneliness is the way back and forward.

Hi! I’m Monika Jiang, a writer and community builder. My work asks what becomes possible when we stop treating loneliness solely as a problem to solve—and start reimagining from it instead.

About me 
The Idea

We have turned loneliness into a pathology. And a pathology needs a cure, which means it needs a market.

The loneliness economy is built on this premise: that loneliness is a condition, something to be managed and removed. By AI companions. Therapy apps. Community platforms. Productivity tools rebranded as purpose. Each one premised on the belief that the right intervention will finally fix what is broken in us. None of them ask whether the structures producing the loneliness might be the problem. None of them can afford to.

Loneliness is not a pathology. It is a signal, one of the most deeply human things we carry, and it is asking us to look more deeply than any solution will allow. To look at how we work and why, how cities are built and for whom, what we have reduced love to, what we have stopped asking of each other, what we have handed to technology because it felt easier than staying present.

Oneliness does not offer a cure. It offers a framework — for reimagining the systems, structures, and relationships that make genuine relational life possible. A proposal for living together differently.

Writing & Conversations

Essays and conversations with select guests tracing the Oneliness framework through the structures of contemporary life — artificial intimacy and AI companionship, the overburdening of romantic love, what productivity culture does to our capacity for care, how cities are built for convenience rather than encounter, what faith and ritual carry that secular modernity has lost, and more.

Read & Subscribe on Substack

Speaking

Keynotes on loneliness as a structural condition — for organizations, cultural institutions, and festivals navigating the future of work, technology, and human relationships.

L'Oréal Professional · Pullman Hotels · Phoenix Group · P150 · Nebenan Stiftung · TEDxPotsdam · The Conference · House of Beautiful Business · Unfinished Festival · Future Days · The Merode

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Shared Table Dinners

A designed practice for organizations, festivals, and communities who want to move from transaction to genuine encounter. Shared Table creates the conditions for the conversations that don't usually have space in professional or public life — structured around a question rather than a topic, built for the moments that matter. The Oneliness framework, made physical. Available for organizational commissions, leadership retreats, and festival programming.

Coming up soon:
The Shared Table Deck, a dinner ritual for everyone.

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1:1 Work for Public Speaking & Space Holding

For founders, leaders, and emerging voices preparing to speak publicly about ideas that matter to them. For organizations, institutions, and communities designing experiences that require genuine encounter — not just programming. I have held space for groups across demographics, geographies, and cultures: corporate leadership teams and neighborhood collectives, intergenerational gatherings and international conferences, physical and digital. I bring that range to the design of spaces where something real can happen.

  • I love reading your newsletters — they always feel like a conversation with a friend who truly gets it. Your words have helped me see loneliness not just as an absence, but as a way to deeper relationships.”

    — Jenna S.

  • “Mapping out my circle of friends has helped me to visualize and sense the people I want to prioritize, and the ones I may need to let go of. Loved the exercises, and will try to revise it each season!”

    David L.

  • “I have an increased body awareness, the difficult emotions don't get stuck that much due to tuning into it again during the practice and relaxing the body with the moment of gratitude. I feel like I don't get so reactive anymore, or I notice faster if I do and get myself out of it faster.”

    Susan K.

  • “Grateful I've been able to experience one of your powerful workshops, unforgettable.”

    Stephanie W.

  • "It became a ritual to spend an hour together in this group-led space, reflecting thoughtfully, and connecting deeper than your usual Zoom call."

    — Long V.

  • “This is probably the best and most sincere talk that I have watched. Hugely valuable and worth sharing an outlook on life to counter balance the prevailing stream of selfishness and greed.”

    David C.

Get in touch with me!

With a request, a message, or a wish—I’d be happy to hear from you.