It’s a cozy fiction cliché to set the story in a quirky village where gossip travels faster than light and a small number of villagers miraculously pull off a full calendar of summer festivals and holiday extravaganzas as well as rally to help neighbors in times of need.
In one series the center of town industry is a grating queen bee named Peggy, who bulldozes everyone into volunteering. (“Harangue” is a common verb for her.) As much as her demands cause eye-rolls, the protagonist at one point realizes they actually need an organizer like Peggy in order to be that vibrant town. She realizes that, left to their own devices, they would mostly stay in their homes and not come together as a community — much less give so much of their time in service of the greater good. Peggy’s unrelenting campaigning and, indeed, haranguing is what makes all those events happen and ultimately creates the ties that bind.
“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”
— African proverb
While Peggy needs to take it down a few notches, there’s truth in that, and our desire for a connected life may be why so many stories are set in these magical towns.
We are growing farther and farther apart from each other, although that’s nothing new — the landmark book Bowling Alone came out an astonishing 25 years ago, documenting the loss of our cultural institutions and declining participation in civil and social groups. Since then, we’ve seen this accelerate with the rise of mobile phones, economic insecurity, and political polarization, not to mention a worldwide pandemic that imposed isolation. After which many found themselves reluctant to return to the world, feeling freed from unrewarding obligations and over-scheduling.
It’s a downward spiral: As community bonds weaken, we don’t feel a sense of collective purpose or the benefits of belonging, and without purpose or belonging we don’t see the point of engaging, and the bonds further erode. It has become harder to connect, harder to stay connected, despite ever more channels.
That’s the macro view. On a personal level, everyone in my life longs to connect more but struggles to find the time and energy. For 10 years we have all been the “hang in there” kitty, stressed about the cost of living and retirement, burned out by doing more with less faster at work, frightened by the erosion of rights and democracy, and worried about kids and aging parents. Not to mention our own aging bodies and health issues!
What would help our stress levels is having that village. We know this! We want this. But we’re exhausted.
As this thoughtful reel points out, it takes a lot of effort to be in a village. It’s not only about receiving support, we also have to be ready and able to pick up the slack for others when they need it. The village doesn’t create less work for us, it creates more! It’s a fundamentally more sustainable and meaningful way to live, but most of us don’t have enough experience with this kind of reciprocal care to believe in it. Much less the energy to overcome the inertia of isolation. It sounds like a fantasy.
I don’t know what to do with that, honestly. Where do we go from here? What can bring us together? If a Peggy emerged to lead us, would we even follow her?
A silver lining of living in “interesting” times may be a revival of mutual aid societies and neighborhood associations. We’re certainly going to need it, although it’d would have been nice to get there in a less catastrophic way. The blueprint for this exists — immigrant family networks and marginalized communities have always pooled their resources to get around systemic barriers. It’s us middle class capitalists, raised with an outsized sense of independence, who have the most to learn. I hope we find our way there, and soon.