A sense of community is not just important, it’s the only thing.

I’ve always been a community person ever since I could remember certainly in my 20s and the so-called swinging 60s. I did very little actual swinging, more morose hanging around wandering what I was doing on the planet.

Today we visited Timsbury for the well established annual seeds swap. It’s not only seeds actually but plants, works of art, health stands, local campaigning groups for example for the establishing of more woodland.  I made a bee line for the ever popular servery with lovely homemade cakes and buns. Not as much savory as I would have liked.

While seated at my eating table I saw a lady wandering around trying to plonk herself down somewhere and she came to join me which I always regarded as a good sign.  It became obvious that we had things in common such as our attitude to co*vid and health in general. She is also part-time gardener and we were able to discuss the attitudes of our customers, for example the difference between rich people and poor people and how rich people can try to bargain you down to a lesser price.

Becky-  for it was she – said that once she gave in to the demands of a wealthy person but a few months later regretted it and decided to stop working for that person. I said that if a job starts badly it will go on being bad and will not magically increase in quality. I said that if you get a bad first impression of someone then walk away because it’s not going to change.

Next I went to see someone working for a group called Avon Needs Trees where they are working to beautify and enrich areas of low quality soil and they are trying to obtain the cooperation of local farmers to have a different attitude to their land – seeing it as a resource. I am a sucker for signing up to things and I did in this case.

I then went along to the Rockaway Park stand (I have written about Rockaway so many times so look at up in the search box on this site) and said how much I appreciated the offbeat artistic facility there. I did not know how Mark the owner finances the venture but obviously he does at some cost to himself I suspect. I said that if ever I became depressed I would go along there, meet real people, and feel enlightened and empowered when I left.

They have a restaurant or more accurately a food area which is very active at weekends and at other times operates a trust system for tea coffee and cakes.

I then went to visit Stef Mills who runs a holistic well-being organisation and sells Weleda health products. She recommended me to a person who could give me some remedial massage for a very stiff buttock and hip. While being given the telephone number I reflected that I go into a panic when being asked to do something under pressure for example saving a new contact on my mobile phone. I messed up, accidentally deleted the number and had to go back with a good old fashioned pen and paper.

Stef identified with me completely and said that she functions best in an atmosphere of peace and silence.

I met a French lady called Em, short for Emanuele, who was a photographer and teacher. We agreed the most important thing for photo work is to see into someone’s soul in the case of portraiture and understand who you are photographing. She reckons she can get the essential picture of someone in five minutes. We agreed that as such you needed to be a genuinely interested in people.

Psychologically and spiritually I think that an outward looking community feeling for all other souls is the main basis that we have to maintain our sanity.

We are hard wired for social contact

We stayed for about two hours and I reflected on the warm and supportive atmosphere consisting of real people exchanging information to value and supporting the community. We are hard wired to be social animals and the evil powers that be know this all too well as we can all see with the complete isolation of the activist Tommy Robinson whose mental health is deteriorating by the day because they do not allow him to have any conversation with anybody else.

This act of the authorities is brutal, this is evil, this is vindictive. If we had no community activities I honestly don’t know what I would do though during the time of covid we did have some experience of this.

Communities built up one step at a time, one person at a time. As I always do I talked to as many people as I could and try to introduce something or value into the conversation perhaps by asking a question, or making an observation.

Why bother with community building?

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, being part of the community can improve your mental and physical health or perhaps just stabilise it. Feeling connected and supported and indeed loved enhances your value to yourself as an individual and the exercise of discussing things with other people keeps the brain tuned like a violin.

We can possibly be the instrument of social change and make a difference to the lives of others.

It is 100% legitimate to share joys and sorrows, so long as you don’t bore people to death by going on for 30 minutes about situations that they’re not interested in.  I think a moment of sharing is a wonderful empowering thing for both parties.

It’s also a great advantage that you can ‘phone a friend’ in case of need and avoid falling into the trap thinking that you are the only one suffering from a particular problem. There is a tendency amongst human beings to leave problems of a physical and mental nature until very late in the day when in fact a talk with the right person at the right juncture could save a lot of pain and damage.

I’ve always wanted to feel useful in my life and if I can see a chance of helping someone I will gladly do it.  To me, giving is important. It’s not just a feel good factor it’s the fact that we have a responsibility to care for and nurture each other and ‘do as we would be done by’ you could say.