Common Effrontery
Commons – Does a word make an action?
This is an invitation to word play and it is not Wordle nor a crossword puzzle. So proceed with your morning ritual. This is something else.
In this game I give you a definition; you give me the word you think I’m referencing. This might be like the effort to help an addled mind find the word they know but which remains hidden. Or it is just a quick brush-up on our assumptions about being understood. A test of the language we use to communicate our thoughts and intentions. That is, those of us who are still talking and who have the patience to hear and say more.
But let’s begin. First definition I give you now is, “to have in common.” You give me the word that expresses that. Here are some words that show up: share, community, common. Say you live in a place where other people also live nearby. Can we call them neighbors? Say you came lately or on the other hand, maybe you came a long time ago. (Maybe you’ve already left.)
You a local? A tourist? A newcomer? A part-timer? A second-homer? Scion of generations? The ground on which you meet is changing but not usually as much as the people who are coming and going. This depends on the place but seems to be ever more so – this changing. Not by birth and death but by moving around.
So you land in this place. (Put aside for the moment the most dire fleeing war and oppression. Limit the discussion to those who have some supposed choice.) Say someone invited you to come or you heard it might be good. Or you came to do work with a person your admire who also works there.
Or you got a job. Maybe a job at a place you thought you were suited for among others with whom you guessed you’d be compatible. Or you met in a foreign land and fell in love with a home boy. He promised a homeland. Or your brother was there. Or you just had to get away from where you were or you had an idea of the land or sea upon which it rests and thought you might be able to put yourself there and see what could happen, what connections you might make. See how it fit. Maybe it was based on hearsay. Maybe you saw it in an Instagram post and you are a victim of some marketing scheme. Or maybe you were born there and also grew up there. The place changes over the years. Things once very familiar take on a different hue. The place changes over time worn by the vicissitudes of economics and weather. Your perspective changes too.
There you find yourself in this place and what do you find “in common” with those around you? Apart from the place itself? Apart from the reason you thought you’d visit or even settle or the roots that lie under you.
Could embracing a familiar word and imbuing it with deeper significance lead to meaningful change? Or was this a misunderstanding?
Can the impulse to articulate and discuss an idea manifest as action?
Will engaged dialogue harvest better towns? Does reading help? Do words matter? Does meaning guide us? Does meaning beget action? Is conviviality a tool for social change? Does change imply betterment?
If decisions are made at the supervisors meeting, and the meetings happen every Tuesday morning, but most citizens do not show up, are we part of a participatory democracy? And if it takes energy to get there, where do we source that energy?
Threatened by nature and also by climate change, or in this case, fires, we voted for fire protection. A group of young city folk arrive in uniforms to my rural house. I am not home. Physical notices are left and electronic notices assert themselves in my email inbox. Click the links and there I am at my home on the web, problems identified. If my outdoor shower was made with salvaged wood and old windows, I am docked.
A couple storms ago the power went out again. Then my dying cell phone sent a gasping warning that 911 services were down. I’d come to depend on that power. And that cell phone. And I took the 911 services for granted. I recognize in myself, my own latest gasp, as the one who was convinced I must be saved. But what if it all fails? What if there are no institutional heroes?
This was one of the doorways through which our local commons project entered.
(To be continued...)
