Why It’s Important to Relate to Community as Well as Individuals

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MAUDE: Recently, Phil and I and another friend attended a gathering to listen to our government representatives talk about the current situation. It was held a few blocks from where we live, here in Santa Barbara, CA. As we walked toward the event, something quite unexpected occurred. The sidewalks were full of people streaming toward the same destination. They flowed forward from every side street, and as we got closer, we saw lines going around the block in both directions.

It was such a powerful experience to feel the huge numbers of people, the connection everyone was feeling with each other, and the joy that produced. The scene virtually screamed, “You are not alone! We are here. There are lots of us. We are a community.”

It reminded me of another experience that elicited the same profound sense of deep connection with a community at large. It happened on the way to Woodstock, the music festival that took place in upstate New York in August of 1969. I am not referring to the extraordinary aspects of being part of that massive group, but rather the first flashes of understanding that we were participating in something rare and amazing. As we drove along the New York State Thruway, we realized that every car on the road was heading there. And as the crowds on the road grew larger and larger, there was a jubilance radiating from car to car. We were having a direct experience that we were all connected and part of something bigger than ourselves.

I have been reflecting since the recent event how deeply important it is to feel this type of connection and to have an awareness of not being isolated from it. None of us is alone. We live intertwined with one another, sharing services and depending on each other in a million tiny ways for our lives to function. As we foster peace within our individual relationships, we need to nurture the sense of community and our relationship to it as well.

We have different options since the restrictions of Covid times brought us Zoom and the ability to meet up with each other without distance being an issue. As that way of being together evolved, it has created a whole new forum for us to become aware of each other and to share and support each other. This is also true of some social media, depending on how those avenues for interaction are used.

In these current times, it is ever more important to foster these relationships and to find a sense of backing and support within community, as we each strive toward individual peaceful relationships.

PHIL: I’ve been reflecting recently on how cooperation (literally: working together) is a fundamental aspect of society. Take bread, for example; it needs people to plant wheat, harvest it, thresh and mill it, bake it, package it, deliver it and sell it. Now do the same for a thousand other items, from cars to computers. Cooperation is so ubiquitous that it becomes invisible and people only see society in terms of competition, which is the jostling by which we pick the most efficient ways to work together and produce things.

This working together is a basic feature of humans, going back forever. We were tribes and groups even before we invented language, and the need for connection, both material and emotional, is built into us. Go and live by yourself for the rest of your life if you don’t believe me. No contact with others, no goods of any kind. Very few people could survive.

But we are also individuals, and in the West in particular, attention is so focused on the individual – money issues, therapists, self-esteem, parenting, fitness – that our basic need for people receives little focus.

That need is assuaged by our relationships, so next time you are with friends or a partner, look for it; see how it makes you feel being in their presence. More widely, this is the feeling that community provides, so next time you shop or eat out or go to a show, say thank you to the staff for their contribution to community.

Photo credit: Maude Mayes
Photo note: Crowd watching Summer Solstice parade

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