A friend of mine is one of those annoying multi-talented people. Able to pick up and master most things as he chooses. He’s an exquisite guitarist, he teaches art and design at the University level and he is a remarkable painter. In between late-night sets at late-night gigs, between the heat-tarnished pots and pans of the tequila bar kitchen, we discuss music, our upbringings, our families and art. When I ask him what he’s working on, he sighs. Pauses. He describes the agonizing paralysis he experiences in simply conceiving of his next painting. It takes weeks, sometimes months for him to actually get from the impulse to paint to the act of putting paint to canvas.
And so, here is where I start. Where I relate. After many years’ hiatus from this little spot in our paper, I’m finally putting paint to canvas as it were. Admittedly life has been busy since I first started contributing to the Cosmos a number of years ago. I can’t tell you how many impulses to write have come and gone, how many column ideas have been noted as breathy midnight voice memos or hastily written on long-since buried scraps of paper. Ideas that have since aged out on the basis of irrelevance or cringe-worthy datedness. But, I finally feel ready to write. Maybe it’s because – as my kids are growing and becoming a bit more independent – I have more space to think and consider my own thoughts. In truth, I think it’s more that I feel compelled to write. The current news cycle is like a lawnmower drone of despair and anger. But, if you can manage to look away for just a minute, you’ll hear that the birds still sing, you’ll see that the sun (though woefully elusive this winter) still rises and, if you allow it in, community still exists everywhere.
In this post-pandemic time of perilous disconnection, we are reminded by every study, by every crisis, that community will literally save us. I, myself, am fortunate to have various communities to reach out to when I need support – moral or otherwise. Childhood friends, people I’ve studied with, theatre friends, musician friends, neighbours, my family. But I’m painfully aware that this isn’t the “norm.” In a world of eight billion people, sadly, countless people still feel deeply alone.
In the virtual world, we are increasingly reminded by those who seek to profit from our division and estrangement that we are irreconcilably different. Meta, in all its power, literally profits from our outrage. The more we post on their platforms, engaging with faceless, far-flung eejits or bots, the more the corporation rakes in the dough. Whether or not Mark Zuckerberg chooses to defend the design of his apps, I think we can all agree, with the ubiquitousness of the term “doom scrolling,” Meta makes apps that are unhealthy and possibly addictive.
Maybe you just need to hear this. Step away from Facebook. Flush Twitter (or X) down the nearest toilet. Take a siesta from Instagram. I’m not saying quit these platforms cold-turkey, but set yourself some limits (aside from work obligations) – give yourself 30 minutes a day on socials to check in with your pal in London, post memes for your music nerd posse or see how big Lenny Kravitz’s scarf is this winter … whatever, then log out. I recently started stepping back, myself, by deleting the apps from my phone. I still have accounts, but I’ve made it more difficult for myself to access by having to sign in using passwords I have to look up every time.
The next step is to engage with your real-life community. Gird your loins, millennials (I say this with love as I straddle the Gen X and Millennial divide being a 1979’er) – pick up your phone and … yes, gulp … call a friend. Call your mom, your aunt, your dad, your high school history teacher. Schedule a weekly gab with your dog-walking posse, yoga bendies, knitting group or gear heads at a local coffee shop, restaurant, park bench or barber shop. Talk to people in person. Listen to people in person.
If you feel safe enough to open your eyes and your heart, you’ll see that community is all around you. Community is your neighbour pulling up with his farmer truck to boost your sad minivan battery on a brass monkey of a morning; community is your friend dropping off a gigantic coffee, having heard you had a tough week; community is a team of people with chainsaws appearing out of nowhere to take the tree off your storm-ravaged roof; community is the guy on the block with the snow blower clearing the whole sidewalk after another epic snowfall; community is 160 winter-weary people showing up to listen to your music and cheer on the local high school jazz band on a January night. Community is selflessness and support and understanding that we are not so different. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we’re all just idiots out here, trying to survive. So, how will you find your community – or alternatively – how will you create it?