Why Is It So Hard To Say Hello?
The obsession with our own personal 'community' is blinding us to the real communities we exist within each day.
Before getting into the newsletter I wanted to let you know that ‘A Night With Buda’ is happening August 17th at Vogelmorn Bowling Club in Wellington - here’s the awesome poster by Patrick Hickley!
Its the final show of a three show run in the capital and there are still tickets available so if you, or someone you know, is in Wellington consider coming along - the show is an incredible night of music and conversation and Luke has a strong catalog of solo material and music from his band The Phoenix Foundation.
Find tickets at undertheradar.co.nz and lets get into the newsletter!
Recently I’ve been thinking about community.
Community seems to have been individualised in an effort to be commodified. “There’s ‘a‘ community out there for ‘you’.” “Build ‘the’ community ‘of your own’.”
I’m suspicious of anything presented as simple and straightforward - especially when it comes to the messy, chaotic beings we call people.
Under capitalism everything is simplified to be sold.
Concepts and culture can be processed and refined for consumption - just like pre-grated cheese or a frozen meal.
We are sold the idea of community as a perfect fitting, highly fulfilling, end destination of our social and cultural life. All we need is to purchase or consume the right icons and talismans to fit in. We need to engage with social media to find the people exactly like us.
We need to connect, to connect.
In reality, communities are far more mundane, numerous, and transitory.
For periods of my life I’ve taken a regular public transport route to and from work. I’d catch the same bus, with the same driver, with the same passengers already on board. We’d stop at the same stops, I’d get off at the same time. On the way home I’d wait for the same bus, with the same people.
We - on that bus - were a community. And yet I never attempted to say a word to anyone and no one talked to me. We would barely look at each other.
I’ve been on the tube in London pressed up against other people to a claustrophobic degree and we just stood in silence (opting for our own headphone fuelled auditory fantasy land).
Anything we do with routine has a community of people attached to it. Your neighbours, the staff at the local cafe, your own co-workers. Unfortunately they aren’t the community we have benn taught to desire.
Today we want to curate community.
Prune and plan our community. Build a community for ourselves.
How selfish we are. Community is people. People are messy and communities are too. I’ve been as guilty as anyone in trying to create a community for myself, for fixating on a fantasy and losing sight of those around me.
I’ve also felt ignored or invisible to the people around me. We are all victims of the commodification of community. The utopianism of a curated group of real people who fulfill our own individual needs at the expense of their own messy, normal lives.
How to fight or fix it? No clue.
My approach is to be friendly, open and brave - trying to turn every online interaction into a real life one and seeing where it goes from there. Trying to turn every half-chance meeting into a proper introduction. Making room for peoples messiness while being attuned to my own natural direction.
On one level its heavy complicated. Its also as easy as saying ‘hello’.
Hello! Really enjoyed this—it has given me a lot to think about. Am I doing community right? hmmm... Thanks Hahko