Building community in an individualistic world

I talk a lot about community

Sangha, in Buddhist teachings. I long to be a member of meaningful communities. I want to belong. I beat up on the rugged individualists and condone their self-serving greed.

As pretentious as I might be about my relative level of awareness, a good friend said something to me that keeps me in check.

“Chris”, my buddy says, “for a guy who preaches a lot about community, you‘re incredibly isolated from it”.

And he’s not wrong. I’m a walking contradiction. My walk doesn’t match my talk. I’m the very thing I preach against.

My introverted, lone-wolf nature makes it difficult to participate in communities despite yearning to belong.

Why is community hard for some?

Are you familiar with the ‘double empathy problem’? Briefly, autistic people tend to empathize well with each other, but not with allistic or neurotypical people. Similarly, allistic folks are good at relating to each other, but not to neurodivergent people.

I wonder what it is like to belong. Do some people find community easily? For example, many men seem to find strong bonds around American football. Christians seem to bond easily over their shared faith. Even (neurotypical) coworkers appear to form relationships around their shared workspace. I have never related to any of these things myself, much less to a degree where I could share that with someone else.

I know the grass is always greener on the other side, but I wonder if there are people who easily form relationships and become members of meaningful communities. I see it happen around me every day. My wife, for example, has become an ambassador of liveaboard sailing life by participating in social networking. It warms my heart to see her find a sense of belonging even though I cannot.

Superficial membership

Communities around kids’ activities, sports, and hobbies are not hard to find. But even in the marginal communities I am involved in, the relationships are not deep. “How’s the weather?” if you know what I mean. Neurodivergent and hyper-aware people often can’t tolerate surface-level relationships.

Maybe this is my problem? Am I missing the point that communities are necessarily superficial? Am I longing for something outside the realm of possibility?

Say it isn’t so, because I don’t know what to do if that is true.

The community I long for has connections at a different level. I want to bond over shared values. I want to talk about difficult things. I want to share meaningful experiences. I want the other members to be aware and to seek growth. I want to talk about the things we aren’t talking about.

Does that make sense?

What does belonging look like?

Even in niche communities, I rarely feel like I belong. I am moderately involved in groups focused on liveaboard sailing, mandolins, acoustic music, and writing here on Medium. I have and have had, social media accounts but was never able to do very well meeting people. I just don’t ‘do very well’ in that space.

Even when I experienced success, like my former academic career and meditation training I didn’t find what I was looking for. Again, maybe I am asking too much or missing the point.

Maybe I don’t know what belonging looks like. As someone who identifies as neurodivergent, a lone wolf, and who has experienced childhood emotional neglect, maybe I don’t know how to belong. Maybe it’s not the communities. Maybe it’s me.

It takes a village

When I first had kids, I doubled down on my independence. Not many graduate students were having kids, and the academic community disapproved. I had heard the phrase, ‘It takes a village’, but I denied it.

I don’t deny it any longer. I think our species depends on the village. Unfortunately, today’s village means paying other people to care for your kids and looks nothing like the traditional village. The village of my dreams looks like the community I have sought after my whole life.

As with communities in general, the village I need doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Or maybe it’s me. Surely, it’s a little of both.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be defined as resting your attention on the present moment and seeing what arises without judgment or bias. It can be thought of as making friends with yourself and your surroundings. The definition denotes a ‘paying of attention’ that isn’t active. It also identifies a lack of trying to anticipate or influence what arises. It is allowing yourself to be in the world and allowing the world to be in you.

If I extend mindfulness to communities, maybe I am already there. Maybe the communities are exactly what they need to be and exactly what I need. Maybe I just can’t see it.

Likely, I am in my own way. I am missing the point.

The Buddha said that our suffering, or dis-ease, comes from wanting things to be different than they are. Am I attached to wanting my community to be different?

It’s not you, it’s me

If this is true, can I find my village among the football talk? The water cooler chat? The unaware? If so, how?

I long for connection, can I find that in last night’s scores?

I long to discuss the meaning of life. Does that come in the grocery store line?

Maybe it is a numbers game. I am reminded of a restaurant lunch just two days ago as I write. I had a conversation with a young Bahamian man about personal growth, religion, and life. It was particularly meaningful. I felt a serendipity and connection to the world. Is this the element I seek?

Accept what I have or seek improvement?

Ultimately, this is my dilemma.

Is the grass greener on the other side?

Are you truly the product of the people you are surrounded by?

Does where you live matter?

Does who you hang out with matter?

Does any of it matter?

Can I find what I need in any community, or are the characteristics of that community important?

I can see why either case is true. This is another maddening feature of AuDHD.

You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.

How many times have I said that to my kids? Is it true?

If something is broken, don’t you fix it?

Maybe the answer lies in me.

If I am truly attaching to the need for community, that is unhealthy because it is attachment. If the Buddha is correct and my suffering is caused (at least in part) by my desire for my situation to be different, that is also unhealthy. If I cannot recognize the very thing I am after because of the first two, that is tragic.

Connecting to oblivion

It seems as though the problem is me. My (pretentious) desire to manicure my connections with people might be my problem. My inability to accept what ‘it’ is over what I want ‘it’ to sound like a classic case of Sysiphean frustration.

I am my own worst enemy! I always wondered what that meant.

Maybe the communities to which I already belong are exactly what I need. Maybe opening up to that possibility will loosen my attachment to expectation.

Maybe, if I open my mind a bit.

Maybe, if I relax a bit.

Maybe, if I allow the world to be as it is instead of trying to manipulate it.

Maybe then I will find what I seek.

Maybe I am already there.