The strikes are over. Finally. Another time of crisis has passed, and we made it through. Time to clear the shambles and get on with it – but how? Crisis are always an opportunity, both the time in the middle as well as the aftermath. An opportunity to either grow together, or to fall apart. Create community or fall into individualism.
I choose community. Over and over. It’s a lot of work. Building community is different than socializing. I was always great at the latter, but it took me a long time before I was able to understand what a community is, or should be. To even get to the point where I was able to work on building community, I had to work on myself to get into the right space to be positive for community.
It takes a lot of consideration, some empathy and the ability to put the needs of the community above one’s own wants. That alone is something that many people are not able to do anymore. Individualism has infested us, as capitalism is an individualist ideology and has conquered everything. But that’s not important right now. Okay, yes, it is, it’s always important. But not part of the story.
One of the most important skills in life and for community is very underestimated – listening. I always considered myself quite smart, and studied, and overall a chap that has very intelligent things to say. Listening, that was only to catch the other’s argument and then smash them into the ground, go all intellectual Hulk-Mode on them. It wasn’t listening, it was finding the other’s weakness and conquering them.
Two days ago, I sat down with an old friend of mine. We talked about our situation during the strikes, how we see the world differently, how we handle emotions. At the end, he told me – “Thank you for listening so carefully.” Though we don’t see eye to eye on many things, we had the most pleasant exchange of words, after I had written a long article, formulating my frustration, desperation and fears in the last days of the strike. He had written the most beautiful answer to it. It was then that I realized that I had become a real listener, and my life is the better for it.
Listening is not only listening and processing words. It’s also accepting the other as another being, in their wholeness, giving importance to everything they say or write. It requires more than consideration, but empathy. And both are essential in communities.
Remember 2020? Everyone was scared out of their minds. We have so many expats here that don’t even speak Spanish, all elder, all in the risk group. I was not, far from it. People knew me, trusted me. So I helped. I didn’t drop what I was doing, but beside my regular work, I did shopping. Deliveries. Channeled thousands of USD of donations to get to the people most in need during those months of harsh lockdowns in Ecuador (2pm – 6am lockdown). As a baker, I had a permit to drive and deliver and do whatever at any time of the day, and organizing the preparation and delivery of food to hospitals, police and military certainly helped with being able to move around freely.
I even fed a dog. Bear was a street dog, beautiful beast, very old for a street dog, the best friend of one of my best friends, JM. He had organized for Bear to be fed vitamins and pain meds within scrambled eggs each day after JM had moved away. But then the lockdowns came. So, once a week, P brought me the 7 packages of prepared scrambled eggs to keep in the fridge and bring to bear every evening. Every day for many months.
When Lily and her mom finally came back from Colombia where they had stranded, she came with me. She loved Bear, and always insisted on giving him the scrambled eggs herself. She loves animals, period. It’s awesome to see that against all odds and obstacles put in my way, I managed to be with her all along. In any disaster, she’d be the first I’d save. I’d probably come back for more people, if possible, but honestly, I wouldn’t even think twice, no matter who else is in danger. Not because she carries my genes, but because I see so much potential in her to bring healing into this world. Because I believe that she can contribute disproportionately more to making this world a better place than everyone I know, including me. If she so chooses to, of course. But I think we’re on a good path.
What are your thoughts about this topic? Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI.
Post written for the #weekend-engagement by @galenkp inviting us to answer selected questions in the Weekend Experiences community each week.
This is my response to:
Helping hand: Have you ever dropped what you're doing to give someone a hand when they needed it most? Explain.
What were you incompetent at doing but through hard work and effort became proficient at doing? Explain.
Imagine a disaster occurred: If you had to choose between saving one family member from death or twenty strangers which would you choose and why?
Thank you for reading!
It's funny,you start thinking that community is just something you show up for. But what 'show up' means gets a little complex. It's harder than people think. You have to suppress the fierce need to do things your way, which of course is easy to think is the Better way. You lean that listening and sacrifice is where it's at. Then it gets easy to do that, because we become practiced at it, and understand the reward, right?
Of course you'd save Lily coz she's your kin. But you'd save other sin need too, if you could, so no need for excuses. If she is a child of yours, she must be amazing. She has a damn fine Dad.
The "is it worth it?" questions always pops into my mind, though. It's a lot of work to maintain a community, and many times I wonder if it wouldn't be better to contribute a little less. Just chill a little more. Say "no" more often and focus more on myself. I'm not really sure where the balance really is.
Well, I tell you what it isn't. It isn't getting so pissed off with people that you retreat more into your introverted self and refuse to have anything to do with it, because it's too hard. Seriously, I tried. If you are getting any value from the people you've shacked up with, so to speak, keep trying to find a balance. It's better than being isolated, that's for sure.
Oh, that wouldn't work for me. Been there, done that. I'm happy that I unlearned that part, honestly, got away from that hedonistic and egocentric me. Still, even in those times I was a lot more considerate than most people, from what I see. But I do tend to give too much, not only by a little, but quite a bit, and then take a step back as soon as I hit walls or notice that it's not reciprocal. I did find some folks that are in the same mindset as I regarding community, and we did very well during the strikes. And as I recently described, my network is quite vast, and that helps a lot, too. Many people here, especially expats, are now fed up with how things are done here. I can understand that, and yet, I have no desire to leave. I don't give up that easily.
Once you realise that it takes all folks, and it's very rarely about YOU personally, it gets easier. I'm definitely done with this community though - some real bitchiness and exclusion strategies at work, and I have no energy to try to make thing better, so I've just withdrawn. This is the case of 'it's not me, it's everyone else' - and I'm not the only one that thinks so.
The view of the mountain with the market.. that cloudy wet weather.. I love everything in that photo! I would like to experience it.
Tthis was such a beautiful and honest reflection. The part about listening really hit me. I think many of us had to unlearn that “intellectual Hulk mode” to truly understand what empathy means. And your story about helping during the lockdowns and feeding Bear honestly is so beautfigul. You can really feel the heart behind your words. Thank you for sharing this, it’s inspiring in a very real, human way.
I've experienced extreme collectivism and extreme individualism in different forms and I get why people really support both. I think we need a whole lot of both, and I don't think we are good at balancing them, so that's where I try to grow. In fact, I don't think wants or desires need to clash with other people, so rather than sacrificing my desires or needs, I always look for a win/win. If I can't find one, I make one.
I tend to give more towards the community. Until now, that always paid off nicely, so there is that balance between giving to the community and receiving as individual. It's intertwined, and not really easy to untangle. The better I am, the better for the community. The better the community is, the better for me. That's something that drives me towards building networks and community, too.
It's basically my philosophy too but I've lived in communal living spaces and spent all my time with the same community for months at a time and I found it was really to lose myself in the culture.
I started looking at people outside as OTHER, and losing my sense of what I truly wanted because I didn't want to be alienated by the group. I noticed everyone else was doing the same. So I guess you could say I'm a little wary of having too little individualism now. I also live in Japan and lived in China, very collective societies.
But I think everyone needs a community to be a part of and the fun is not in what you get but what you give. I think the community will benefit from you expressing your individualism in a healthy way because that's where people can learn new things and grow.
I guess I should say: I think we should all belong to 2 or 3 communities so we can all become bridges of understanding.
I've been thinking about the other for a long time now, the importance of it. How exposing ourselves to the difference, the otherness, is essential for us to function as a community. I don't think a conformist or uniform community works, but that the exposure to different thinking and other priority structure of values is very important to maintain the community. It makes it harder for a community to become an echo chamber, which in the end does separate it from other communities just as you say.
Maybe then human bridges wouldn't be needed. But that's kind of an utopia these days. For now, I'm happy every time I see people with opposing views having a civil and enriching discussion with each other. That alone is rare enough.
When I read this, I thought that, perhaps, the fuel subsidy had been restored. But, according to the articles that came up in my search engine for news from Ecuador, it appears Noboa threatened military action, so the protesters decided to stand-down. It's a shame that a compromise or work-around could not be discussed. 😕
Throughout all of this, I've been meaning to ask you:
• How much info regarding the strike was shared with Lily?
• How has she dealt with what she knows?
I know it can be dicey when discussing complex real-world issues to a child. I hope things have gone well in that regard. 💞
Yes, it was all for nothing. I'm glad that the protesters didn't fight with the military again. 3 dead is way too many already. It's been a very sad protest this time. I forgot to link two articles of mine, which I will do in a second :-D
I don't share much politics with Lily. I can dumb it down to "they're fighting because both think that they're right", but that's about it. I shielded her somewhat. When she's older, she can understand more. But she didn't like that we weren't able to go anywhere - luckily, her uncle made it into town, and that was the highlight for her. She loves him to death, so she didn't care too much about the blockades anymore. I'm not sure she realized that it's over, besides the fact that I'm a lot less tense since then.
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