Eight Days in the Grand Canyon (Supplement 2): On "Community"

One doesn't want to be a curmudgeon as one ages; at least this one doesn't, futile though the effort may be. That said, I have been sick to death of the word "community" for years. With the advent of the Internet, I would be willing to guess that it may be the most overused word in the language. Every site; every Instagram; every YouTube channel refers to itself as a "community."

It all falls flat for me. Can we be in a real community with people we will never meet? One can argue that we can, but it just doesn't feel right. 

In the real world, our towns are often referred to as "communities." This makes a little more sense, I suppose. Other than a few close neighbors, though, it doesn't feel that way to me in my town. It hasn't feven after two decades. 

As someone who is an introvert by nature, being in groups is generally my last choice. Years ago, however, I think I wrote about the film Witness, with Harrison Ford, and a scene, therein, in which the Amish people come together for a "barn raising." That is the kind of community I can get behind: people willing to really help each other -- not people just organizing Little League together or people reporting each other for having too many weeds at the curb -- but people really being there for each other. 

I was thinking about this last week when my wife and I spent eight days, with a bunch of other expedition members, rafting the Colorado River the entire length of the Grand Canyon. (The entire, longish, story is here.)

According to our trip leader, at any given time, there are about one-thousand people in the Canyon. (It's strictly controlled by the National Park Service.) Given the scope of the place, that's not a lot. And what is cool is that all of them are there for the same reason: to experience the power of Nature, to challenge themselves and to escape the "rim world."

Over those eight days, the common purpose made not just our expedition of thirty, but the other groups we ran across, feel like a real community. Add to that the fact that rafting the Canyon is a kind of filter: most of people go there and see it from the rim, but how many people want to live in there for eight days? -- the proverbial "birds of a feather," that's who. 

Despite different backgrounds, there was kinship in our group. I'm a musician/teacher; Karen is a nurse; one guy works for General Mills. We had a retired bus driver and a Spartan racer; a college student and an air-traffic controller. Our captain works full-time on a ranch and another group member is a retired school bus driver. The trip leader is in construction; one of the swampers is a diesel mechanic. There was a police officer and an airman in the United States Air Force. 

It was like a Chaucer thing: he mixed pilgrims from walks of life who would never have interracted in Medieval society when he wrote The Canterbury Tales: craftsmen, priests, nuns, knights, etc. They had a common purpose, though: a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. Of course, Chaucer was doing a literary experiment, but the situation was not implausible. On such a trip, a knight might find he had much in common with a lowly carpenter or a housewife -- people whose circles he would never otherwise have run through.

We were in the Cathedral of Nature in that Canyon -- pilgrims with a common purpose. (And we got along much better than Chaucer's pilgrims did.) It's yet another proof that what we do isn't who we are. (I once heard a wonderful quotation: "We are not humans doings; we are human beings.")

This trip was, as I said, really a filter for people. First, it had to be people who had evern heard of this kind of trip -- real delvers who did their research and didn't just settle on a fifteen-minute gawk over the rim. Second, it had to be people who were willing to inconvenience themselves for eight days with no showers in intense heat and sun. Third, it had to be people who were willing to shell out the money required for this experience -- similar money for a trip to a resort, but without the comfy hotel, swimming pools and room service. And...no cell service.

The result: people like...us. A true community, if you ask me. 

Ben, our trip leader, said (and exemplified) numerous times: "We take care of each other down here." And that might be the final ingredient for, at least, the kind of community I respect. 

There was no hospital; there were no police or fire organizations, but there were plenty of opportunities to get hurt or lost or stuck. Who was going to do the rescuing? 

Us. We depended on each other. 

Even when there wasn't a need for dependence, the general attitude was complete camaraderie. If you saw boats from another trip, it was all smiles and waves and Grand Canyon yelps of joy; it was all wishes of "Have a great day," or "Have fun at Lava!" 

So, yeah -- I don't really want to hear about online communities or groups of people just claiming the title as a result of proximity. Community has to be in the flesh and it has to be real. At least, to me. 

This was it. 

Hypercommunity

During a discussion with my wife, the other day, I realized that I have been sort of misrepresenting my opinion on a very prominent issue -- prominent, at least, on this blog. What I mean is: the issue of "community." I tend to be harsh toward the idea, which is, to the general populace, not unlike being harsh toward puppies.

I am sure that most readers have been "getting" what I have been trying to say, but, it occurred to me, during that aforementioned conversation, that what I should be railing against is "hyper-community."

My problem is easy to explain: the individual has been swallowed up by a world that over-emphasizes "community" and that is obsessed with the idea of being "connected." But this is not "community;" it is "hyper-community." From now on, I will call it that.

Community is, at least for me, when there is a big storm and one's neighbors come over (as mine once did) to help one clear a huge fallen tree. Community is barn-raisings and sing-alongs. Community is bringing in your neighbor's mail when he is on vacation. Community is returning a lost dog to the address his collar. Community is long summer talks over fences. Community is watching our for your neighbors and working together with them when circumstances call.

What it is should not be is the abandonment of family and the dismissal of private life. It seems, however, that this is what it has become, with the ripples moving outward...

Perils of a Keyword Culture

I had a thing in mind to write about today, but something happened.

In my post from Wednesday, I wrote, in part, about my distaste for e-readers, like the Nook and Kindles. As is my usual practice, I "tweeted" that article for my Twitter and my Facebook H&R followers on my blog's "off" day. Of course, Tweets are public, unless you set them not to be so. I hash-tagged my "tweet" (good God, it feels ridiculous using this terminology) with "#kindle"; therefore, it was seen by "Kindle Review" --  a Twitter account that, it seems, promotes and reviews Kindle products.

Well, the Kindle Review "favorited" my post.

Did they read it? Or, did they just see #kindle as a hash tag and "favorite" it automatically? I think we both know the answer to that.

If they had read my piece, they would have known that if more people like me were in the world, their site would have no raison d'etre. Nope. It is all about sharing, these days -- all about networking with the community. [insert robot movements here]

And, maybe, here lies is the key to a paradox I have been feeling ever since I started chirping my anti-community sentiments. I speak, all of the time, about individualism and against the compulsive need people seem to feel for "community" and "sharing" everything, yet I write a blog. Let's face it: every writer of a blog is trying to gather a "community" about him. But this little Twitter incident helped my to unravel the paradox.

Loneliness in Numbers

Give me one mumbling, meandering, daydreaming, stick-wielding kid for ten droop-necked texters in a pack.

Give me one knee-hugging, sunset beach-sitting thinker for a hundred iPod strand-joggers.

I’ll take one game-loving loser for a thousand equipment-throwing "athletes"  --

One video-gaming, movie-quote-repeating teenaged “nerd” for a million pouting, mirror-photographed Facebook movie stars.

I’ll bask in the connection to dead people who live like waterfall mist on pages and in timeless sound and I’ll leave the tight-packed rooms full of living excitement for those who think crowds equal company.

I’ll trade the wide world for the endless expanses of my Tardis imagination.

You can have the Grammys; I’ll be jamming with my little boys.

You can have the cheering crowds; I’ll take kind words from good friends.

Let the rest lust over the chilly marble beauty sculpted by the beauty magazine engineers.

I’ll have my original perfect love with the smiling eyes.

They can have loneliness in numbers; I’ll hang with the best of humankind --

The ones from the First Explosion up to my deathbedside.

The Smiling Assault

I think that I have mentioned before how much I hate formality – dressing up, sitting up straight, etc. But that doesn’t change the fact that it occurred to me, the other day, that a renewal of good, old-fashioned formality might just be the thing that can save our world from the groupthink, individual-suffocating vortex it is swirling down into.

We need to function in groups, right? It is, at times, essential for survival. So, we move into cities; we make organizations; we form “teams” and “think-tanks” and “committees” and “task-forces” for stuff.  We can all see the usefulness of working in a group. If we don’t see it, we at least have to admit that we are generally forced to, regardless of our perspectives.

The problem begins when individuals of the group begin to melt into each other. I think formality might be at least part of the remedy for this.

My wife, Karen, is a nurse. I used to joke about the fact that she referred to the doctors she worked with by their first names.  I used to ask her, “What happened to ‘yes, doctor; right away, doctor’” – the good old days when nurses called doctors “doctor” and the doctors called nurses “nurse”?

As a guy who is still a little uncomfortable with being called “Mr. Matarazzo,” even though I hear it a thousand times a day, my immediate reaction to informality between doctors and nurses  is: Good. Cut out the bull – we’re all equal. Formality, schmormality.

More Lungs, Less Air

I'm at it again. I'm thinking about community and the on-going struggle I have regarding the concept. In short, in case you haven't read anything by me on the subject, yet, I have a rough time coming up with things that are positive as a result of community -- that is, outside of the benefit of shared work and companionship. I know these are big deals, but, then, when I start tallying up the problems that come out of community, my inner hermit peeks his long-bearded head out of the isolated cabin window and beckons.

But as a person who never closes the door on different perspectives (and who knows he has shifted on many an issue), I always question myself. A lot of times, while watching movies, I'll see scenes that make community look pretty awesome.

The Compulsion of Community

What I am about to say is going to be like trashing bunny rabbits. It's going to look like I have cleaned up dog vomit with Old Glory or tromped on the crucifix, to some. What I am about to voice my annoyance about is something that is part of our conditioning from birth -- a part that is so deeply embedded that I think many of us believe it is strictly human nature (though that is part of it, I'm sure) and, so, that going against it as a sacred necessity is nothing short of treason against existence. But I have to say it. Let the chips fall.

I'm sick of "community."

No Small Talk

I just had my first haircut. That is, my first haircut in a barber shop. (They wouldn't give me a damned lollipop, though.) See, my mom, a hairdresser, by necessities of old (i.e. she is a musician just like the rest of my family), always cuts my hair, but she just had to have surgery to correct the damage of those necessities.

So, I walked in to the barber shop and had no idea what I wanted. (Cut it like my mommy does?) The long and short of it is, I finally worked it out and the haircut is pretty good and they even slapped hot towels on my face afterward. (I'm not sure why -- there was no shave forthcoming, but it felt pretty good. Scared the hell out of me, though.)

When the Crowd Closes In

I sing the praise of the long-distance runner who takes to the road in the damp morning darkness and sinks into the rhythm of her feet hitting the pavement and who floats through the wondrous maze of her thoughts in a runner's high, exploring who she is and how strong she can become. So long as she is preparing for a race she doesn't care about winning.

I sing the praise of the boy sitting in his silent room at night on a Saturday, painting tiny pewter figures and watching old Sherlock Holmes films as the fog curls around his house. So long as he is going to meet his friends for a role-playing adventure during the week and put those painted pieces to use.

I sing the praise of the teenaged girl staying home from the mall on a weekend afternoon, no make up, hair in a ponytail, pencil hissing over the pages and filling the book in her lap with sketches. So long as she will share her vision with the world on a day to come.

I sing the praise of the songwriter at the piano, surrounded by papers and working out the fine elements of a chord progression by himself, hours on end, whisper-singing, lightly playing late at night so as not to awaken his wife. So long as he has the guts to sing his songs out loud to the crowd -- when the time comes.

I sing the praise of the prayerful old woman who has been prayerful since her days of staggering beauty and robust health, praying alone in her outdated kitchen over a steaming cup of coffee. So long as she goes to worship to worship, and not to be lauded for the way she covers her face while she prays or for how loudly she sings.

I praise the thinkers, the believers and the makers and those who treasure silence and solitude and improvement. So long as they stay in the mix, on their own terms. So long as they realize that "community" can be nonsense, but doesn't have to be. So long as they think of themselves first and the world second, but with deep concern. As it must be.

I praise all of the people I hope I can be when the time comes; when the crowd closes in.