The Individual And The Community
Globe Thistle October 5, 2023
I listened to an interesting podcast over on Ctrl Alt Delete hosted by Emma Gannon with Fiona Arrigo . This series of interviews is around her latest book, The Success Myth. I very much enjoyed listening to Fiona speak as an elder in the community. While there were many good points made in the interview - one that stood out to me was the individual vs. the collective community as a way of thinking. It is not a new idea to me - and - it is good that these ideas are making it onto larger platforms.
This globe thistle standing all on its own in the garden was a surprise to find in among the autumn weeds that need to be cleaned up. The bright blue stand-out color is one of the unmistaken ones in the garden. Standing back a bit - there were the rest of them all together in a globe thistle community. It was such a metaphor after listening to the podcast earlier. Standing on our own in the world in our individual lives can be trying. How do we figure things out when we are alone, without another to help us? Help us see ourselves. Help us in new ways of thinking and being.
I am the first one to embrace being alone. It is in alone time that I replenish and find exploration as a natural state of being. My mind can wander down pathways not possible in the midst of other people. I discover who I am often when I am by myself - exploring, writing, reading, listening, tending. I don’t think people have the opportunity to be alone enough. It takes some practice in getting comfortable in this place. Sometimes, this state is suddenly forced upon us without preparation or practice earlier in our lives. It seems to me - a good practice to learn about. There will be a day when suddenly - without invitation we may find our selves with more alone time than we want for a variety of reasons. This might include, illness, accident, loss of a job, loss of friends, moving location, depression and yes of course living in the grief of a death.
In learning to know ourselves when we are alone - when a time of loneliness comes upon us - we are not as devastated perhaps. It’s a practice to develop and keep honed in our toolbox of kind ways to be toward our ever growing selves. We are all really alone with ourselves as we walk through the world. Embracing our own company is a life long gift to ourselves and each other. We learn to be able to stand in who we are with confidence. We find more of who we are with another when we know ourselves fully.
Alone is not the same as lonely. If we do not cultivate and navigate our own internal selves in our times of being alone - too much alone can develop into an ache and a loneliness. This globe thistle just seems to represent this so clearly to me. The close up of all the spikey tendrils stand at attention - almost like antennae - reaching toward another. A softer gaze sees the group appear a bit softer and supported. Is easy to find metaphor in nature for what is pressing in at any moment.
Back to the podcast mentioned earlier. Fiona spoke about our development in the culture as individual. It is baked into all of our western systems of course. Starting from a very young age our educational system puts us on a treadmill of individual striving. This is anti-life. A collective agreement has been reached among us - to continue this same pattern of living and learning. With that comes an entire life of striving and reaching and pushing. Until one day we come to a point in wondering - who am I now? If we work at this effort of learning to be with ourselves - a comfort comes. The striving for more of - what - may begin to loosen it’s hold. I often think of how these skills are not taught to young people. I am certain it is because in order to have this awareness to pass on knowledge - we must first know about it ourselves. Can we really ever teach what we ourselves do not know?
““I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”.”
Globe Thistle In My Autumn Garden
We move now to the idea of individual versus community. The individual is ultimately alone and even perhaps lonely. In western standard culture it is individuality that suffuses all that is around us. We must work hard at not centering ourselves, our own ideas, our blind faith in following things unquestioned. Instead, what is needed now is the hope of community. Focus on what we can do together. What can we offer another human - is really the way forward in this trying time of individualism. As it becomes more challenging to take care of ourselves in changing times - we will need the help of each other to sustain us. What are small ways that we can begin to participate in a more collective culture? What is needed now?
I think when I reflect upon things that are seriously changing - this includes food, housing needs, lack of water, safety in health and environment. All of these are basic needs. The challenges are so large that one can feel overwhelmed - discouraged. The local farmers in my area of New England this year had devastating crop interruptions and failures. Some of them are now facing huge financial loss. How do we help our local farmers who help us eat simple nutritious food each year? We can kick in money, help clean up fields, offer help in ways that they each need - so that these farms and farmers don’t have to fold. Small steps on the way to averting larger and larger disasters each year. We can’t do these things individually. We need all of us working together to find solutions to big problems.
The problems seem more manageable when we work together. Each day a little bit of hope toward what is concerning us the most - we throw ourselves behind the efforts that are needed. Settling can begin to feel like the only option available to us. If we find things that we care about and move a bit toward that in some doable way - a momentum of caring starts to build. Our imaginations begin to expand with what we can envision to be possible. That is exciting! Our dreams build the scaffolding of the future way of living and make it more possible. It can be rough to face the colossal failure of systemic problems in western culture. The stepping toward what we are capable of offering together can bring an optimism to our thinking. Each idea builds on the next. What we can do is try in the ways that are meaningful to each of us.
It is not for each of us to carry the burdens of a world alone. It might be for us to find something positive to create and offer up to a world that is full of hurting. The acts of service and kindness we can bring to our community is a healing balm laid over a wounding that we can each feel in some way. A great service we can offer to one another is the ability to listen. It only takes an effort in attention. It costs nothing monetarily. It does provide rich return to each of us that find some solace and kindness in having been attended to. Even for just a moment. Isn’t that how each movement really begins? Just one small movement that then ripples out to create wider and wider concentric circles - as each of us breathes in and breathes out. A paper lantern lit and released into the sky - hovering above us - small candle flame burning individually - then, it rises higher up into the sky - a sky filled with a dome of stars - catching that one small light into its wide expanse. We are in awe and wonder.
“In the history of the collective as in the history of the individual, everything depends on the development of consciousness.”