On a scale of 0 (free to come and go) to 1 (physically or psychologically unable to cross the threshold), where do you land?
No judgment. Just observation. That is the first step to lowering it.
The isn't a single number. It’s a personal and societal gauge of how the threshold of one’s home transforms from a place of rest into a boundary of constraint. homebound index
It rises with chronic illness, agoraphobia, a broken hip, a lack of transport, a neighborhood made dangerous by neglect. When the index hits 0.8, the front door becomes a museum artifact—beautiful to remember, impossible to exit.
We have metrics for everything else: the Dow Jones for economic health, the UV index for atmospheric danger, the Gini coefficient for inequality. But what measures the slow gravity of staying put? On a scale of 0 (free to come
We began tracking this index unconsciously during the pandemic. Suddenly, billions of people experienced the same metric. Zoom calls became data points. Grocery delivery slots became economic indicators. The number of days without touching soil or seeing a new face became the truest measure of our time.
When we learn to read this index in ourselves— why does leaving feel so heavy today? —we gain self-compassion. When we learn to read it in our neighbors— the elderly woman two doors down has not left her porch in three weeks —we gain community. That is the first step to lowering it
Because a home should never become a horizon.