Well, I’m in the middle of more life crisis stuff with some of my people. How is it going where you are?
This morning one of the people I’ve been going through the current crisis with said, “After this we’re going to have to become more interdependent. Less independent. More interdependent. For real.”
I agreed, because here we are having this conversation in a hospital intensive care unit (ICU). Surviving this and moving forward is going to take some doing — and we can absolutely do that.
I like that I have people in my life who are willing to pull together to help keep each other alive and thriving. I like that I have people in my life who are willing to solve problems together, and to chart out new paths. Given this new crisis for all of us, we’re going to need that. It will so help.
My spring has been filled with this sort of thing. We’ve had both friends and family in various crises both locally and far away. Some of the crises are midstream even as I write. For this particular crisis, I’m sitting in an ICU again. Well, a different ICU than a month ago and for a different person, but it’s verrrrrrry familiar by this point.
I am amazed by so much that’s a part of the ICU. It’s so different than going to a single doctor visit because it’s very clearly an interdependent, interconnected system. There’s a team. There’s technology. There are pieces and parts tying the technology and the people and the information all together to help keep people alive. It’s really quite something.
We need to be doing more of that in our society. In our culture. In our daily lives. Among our family and friends.
We need to get more interdependent. We need more connection and community, too, to help us with that.
Because we’re drifting.
You don’t get an authoritarian movement in a society when the social fabric is healthy. When people are flourishing, prospering, and thriving.
You get an authoritarian movement when your society and its institutions are teetering and rickety. When the social fabric is threadbare and knotted and torn.
You get an authoritarian movement when people have lost faith in the social contract. When they’re cynical. When they lose trust.
We’ve been losing community in this country for decades… and we haven’t done much to shore it up.
We need a movement toward more interdependence. More care. More connection.
The fierce independence and cries for “My freedom!” from people who don’t want to take care of humans or especially of particular humans are not serving us overall.
Are we going to decide as a country that we’d actually like to put community first? That we’d actually like to take care of each other? To take care of humans? To create and value connection and community?
That question has been a lot of my own drive to get this nonprofit going, and it’s why I stick to it even though it’s been a real bear to even get it this far. But our society is getting trickier and dicier and more unstable by the day. We need to do things differently —- yet I mostly see people doing the same things we’ve been doing now for decades.
It’s not working.
Our society is in the ICU, but we don’t have as many helpful teams of folks pulling together to help each other survive as we need to have.
Anyway, my point is we’re going to have to seriously up our game in the interdependence department.
To that end — locally, I’ve been scheming with a few friends to do regular get-togethers with barbecues or picnics or game nights or whatever. Especially because it’s summer. It’s a good way for us to grow some connection, some community, and some interdependence. We’re going to create the space, invite random folks, and go from there.
Anyone can do this stuff. We’re just going to get started with these get-togethers, see who shows up, and go from there.
After this current crisis slows down a bit, that is.
And with that, I’d love to say positive things about next steps for this nonprofit… but I am flat-out out of capacity. This crisis is a doozy and it’s taking all I’ve got to not lose it while also holding it together for the interdependent group of people we’re all going through this thing with.
At Shift the Country we would love love love to get invited to groups to speak on Zoom or around the Midwest about what we’re working to grow here. This calendar here is updated to hold space for the current crisis if you’d like to have a conversation about what we can do. That’s what’s on offer for now. We’d love to help get activities going all over the US this summer but for now I’m taking my own advice and taking care of the humans here (including me) in this current emergency.
Good luck with you and your people and whatever you’re going through or celebrating or navigating or whatever.
Let us know what’s up below. Take care and talk soon.
Very nice post Vanessa. Haven't taken the time to read Shift the County in a while b/c I am behind on many things and have been busier..
Sorry you're having to go through ICUs and the like. My 2023 featured a bit of that.
But your diagnoses of the tears I. The Social Fabric are spot on. Take care, and please keep on keepin' on.
PAS
Hi Vanessa, I'm really sorry to hear about this current crisis, and I'm glad you're taking the time to attend to it and yourself. I also appreciate the link to your calendar. Thank you and thoughts for you during this time.