Village without villagers: on community.

Everybody wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager.

There are some things I love to rant about. Artificial intelligence is one. The futility of art in consumerism is another. But one vital topic that keeps evolving the more I speak to people is the absence of community in our lives.

I know I’m speaking from a personal place, but I do think there’s a lack of community for people from my background and demographic. A lack that, at its core, is destroying our society. Unfortunately, the values of my specific demographic (white, middle class, not an academic myself but in close proximity to academia) often dictate which issues politics deem worthy of fostering, and more importantly, investing in.

I want to preface this by saying that community is lived and deeply important, especially in marginalised groups; be it the LGBTQ+ community, migrant groups, or certain religious communities. I can only speak from an outsider’s perspective, but I believe that in these groups, community is experienced much more fully than in white demographics. Whether out of necessity due to marginalisation or simply because of a deep-seated need for it.

In my completely unscientific, but wholly personal experience, building community often comes down to one question:

What’s in it for me?

How can I personally benefit from this?And I’m not talking about the feeling of belonging, but tangible benefits like:

1. Skills – e.g., organizational skills, learning new tools

2. Contacts – who might I meet thanks to this community? Or, let’s be real, how might I expand my network for my benefit?

3. Achievements – what can I add to my CV after all this community work?

   
   

I’ve been part of groups, actively building them with the hope of finding a sense of belonging: a community I could learn from, fall back into when needed, and one that would inspire me to grow into a better version of myself. What I found instead was the phrase:

You alone are responsible for what you make of these networks/opportunities/communities.

Which, for me, defeats the purpose. It’s a highly individualistic approach to community and it is in it's essence completely futile. I can’t support a community solely to extract value from it. I was and still am exhausted by all the effort I put into building or supporting structures shaped by the capitalist hellhole we’re currently living in. I entered each of these communities with bright-eyed optimism, only to be yanked back to reality. Community work now is the same as wage work. It demands time and effort, and in return, you get: a certificate, a badge for your website, or a new line on your CV.

And now I see this same mindset creeping into areas outside organised communities. Friendships and family structures are being evaluated like work performance reviews: Is this relationship worth maintaining if it doesn’t serve me?

I’m all for setting boundaries when they’re needed, as a chronic people-pleaser, I know how hard but necessary that is. But I also see a trend going in a different direction entirely, one where people are setting boundaries around things that should just be normal:

Listening to your friend when they are sad and offering comfort is normal. Being there for them when they are celebrating things is just as normal. Picking them up from the airport or watering their plants should be fucking normal. It does not have to be an even giving and taking all the time and I don’t understand why we see every social interaction as a trade-off now. 

I am tired too, we are all stuck in a hyper-captialistic and technocratic reality where everything seems to be either an important task, a performance for an invisible crowd or an opportunity for self-improvement. 

As a hopeless millennial, I’m often shocked by the difference between how friendships and communities were portrayed in my childhoods TV shows and how they are now in real life. Instead of meeting for breakfast every other day before work (looking at you, Friends), we now have to shuffle schedules just to grab a coffee every other week.

And I’m extremely lucky with the friends I have, we actually try to prioritise our friendships. I know a lot of people for whom that’s not the case.

We used to have a wide array of communities to belong to before the individualisation of Western society in the '80s: sports clubs, religious groups, political parties, reading circles, Stammtische… remnants of these remain, but they’re upheld by small groups that are crumbling away with their aging members. This is, of course, a hyperbole, but it’s also a bleak truth at its core.

Instead of sports clubs, we join gyms. Instead of political parties, we complain about them and post a slideshow on our Instagram stories (guilty as charged). Instead of reading groups, we listen to summaries on Blinkist and and feel great because we feel closer to our most improved self than before.

What we’re left with is a placebo for community. A sad and distant society made up of individuals who exist to: Work. Get better at work. Get healthier. Start another side hustle. Curate another show of self-promotion for others to admire / envy.

To come back to the opening quote (which, ironically, I came across on social media): We want community, but no one wants to build it without seeking personal gain. Everybody wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager. Because working on, building up, and maintaining a community is hard work – especially when the village is full of people who don’t want to build it with you.

But I want you to know: it’s worth it. Because the alternative is a relentless grind of work and no play. We’re bombarded with problems that seem unsolvable. But the solution has always been there: community.

Find people who support you. Find a voice that grows louder in a group. And it doesn’t have to be political or religious; you can find community in the smallest, niche interests. But you do need it. Trust me.

I’m still trying to build communities. I’ve found small ones I still feel inadequate to be part of, but they embrace me, because I’ve finally grown into who I truly am. I work hard at maintaining these connections, and I know I will be part of a growing, supportive, and beautiful community; one I was essential in helping build.

Community is the strongest tool we have against hopelessness.

And right now, I think we could all use a little bit of that.

The biggest of kudos to IllustrationLadies, Florine and Janina build a whole community that is hard to maintain, often a lot of hard and tiring work with little pay-off but I am happy to keep on building it, it was essential for me and my personal development and with the hardship also came a lot of joy.

I also want to mention the wonderful community built by Flo, Vincent and Lina, The Vienna Motion Bunch. Even though I am a lazy and unskilled motion designer I found a group of not only truly mindbogglingly talented people but supportive and encouraging creatives that made me more confident in my work and that made me feel welcome in a space I usually tend to feel inadequate in. Did I become a better motion designer? Meh. Did I find a community I was missing before? Yes. Thank you for all you do.