IRL Community: What is the point?

What is the point of community?

Here’s the question, as a friend posed it last month:

Why should we even want to build community with people who happen to be proximal, when technology allows us to be part of community with people miles away? 

I reflected on this question during my last five weeks of travel in Europe and North Africa, visiting old friends and family, and came up with four major answers.

1. Emergency preparedness / Zombie apocalypse.
2. Kids playing.
3. Conflict Resolution.
4. The Hugs.

The first one is pretty obvious, but given our tendency to discount risk until it’s too late, we tend to find prepping for bad outcomes to be both boring and “a waste of time”. Kind of like wearing a bike helmet in the 80’s. (Note: I’m as guilty of this as everybody else, both in the 80’s and now.)

The second is even more obvious, especially if you grew up (like I did) exclusively playing with the neighbor kids. I had friends at school, and then I went home and had the kids on my street (Matt and Sarah). And we played together every day from the moment I got off the bus until bedtime, with small breaks for dinner and homework.

No playdates. No driving. No phones. Just play. It was awesome for me, but now — as I parent — I see how dreamy it was for the grown-ups.

The third is something I’ve mentioned before, and one of my main takeaways from talking to scores of Conflict Professionals last year (and William’s Ury’s book The Third Side).

90% of Conflict Resolution is Community Building.

It happens before the conflict. It happens before the idea of the conflict is even present. It happens when you move in and lays the groundwork for all future interactions.

If my son is playing the drums or my tree crushes your road bike or my yard signs rub you the wrong way, it’s a very different reaction if we’ve hung out before and know each other as people.

We want to demonize each other!

“Those new people are so rude”
“Who do they think they are?”

It’s natural. It’s nice to be the victim. Comforting, even.

But knowing each other (ideally) limits that option. If I’ve experienced you to be polite and considerate, if I know who you think you are (because you told me), I’ll have a harder time indulging that desire to demonize you. I can break through that layer and get to the other part of me that just wants to solve the problem and go back to sleep.

So that’s the first three.

The fourth one is my bread and butter. For me, it’s the real reason to build IRL community instead of spending my time talking on the phone to my oldest friends (who are split between Patagonia, Nashville, Gujarat, County Clare, New York, and the Bay area).

The Hugs.

It’s more than just the hugs of course. The hugs are a clue to something deeper. There is a deep-seated feeling of safety and comfort that comes from knowing, recognizing, and smiling at the people who live close to you.

Home is not made of 2x4s or bricks or insulation. Home is made of community.

Running into people at the farm-stand, stopping by at friends’ houses on the way home, and sharing extra bread and curries are what my daily routine is made of.

We live in meat world. We are not (yet) brains in vats. And these marvelous bodies have been cued in to the presence and absence of their homies for a long time. They feel it and react in ways you’re probably not even aware of (unless you just emerged from a mediation retreat).

It’s not just the safety behind a smile (not a growl) or a handshake (not a weapon). It’s more than the implicit approval of somebody wishing you well or asking about your health. There is a sustenance, a spiritual sustenance, in these interactions. The odd joke and laughter. The sense of being useful in a time of need. The luxury in playing with a pet you don’t have to care for.

It feels good. Maybe that’s what it comes down to: simple hedonism. It feels good. Community feels good. It’s also The Right Thing, and The Only Thing That’s Going To Save Us, and The Future of Religion and all that. But that’s not why our selfish, fast-paced society is going to make friends with the neighborhood.

We’re going to do it because it feels good.