Rocking a way forward

A Facebook group, a Surgeon General, A running club and The Who

Rocking a way forward by debgrant

Hang in there with me on this random romp.

It started with me. Alone. An Introvert and that ain’t going to change any time soon. AND a believer in the power and the necessity of community. I know. I am a walking talking contradiction. Welcome to my world. My introversion does NOT mean I don’t want community. What it means is that when I want it, I am inexperienced at it. I mean well but I am socially goofy.

Social Media like Facebook is a place that offers a distorted community, but a community nonetheless. We use it to share photos of fun stuff, beloved ones. We can make connections with friends we had or barely ever talked with in high school. We can share our personal celebrations and tragedies. We can communicate with an emoji or gif or a comment or just ghost - a nicer term for stalking. It offers us community…kindda. It comes with imperfect crap. The crap is enough to abandon social media. Which is easier said than done. It has an unhealthy addictive nature.

The Surgeon General has spoken recently that loneliness should be considered the new pandemic. It is pervasive. It is multi-generational. It is eroding our mental health and killing us.

I started an experiment with a Facebook Group. A one month only, private group I called Write-Along-With-Me. It is like writing a journal, but publically in a small group, I posted prompts such as A place I would like to revisit or A person I admire or A comfort food, etc. I formed the group by extending an open invitation to my 200+ friends on my Facebook page. Nine accepted. The group was formed. What they all had in common was me. A few knew one or two others in the group. Various ages/genders. The only rules I asked were that as much as possible they treat their comments and interaction with each other as they would an in-person small group. No emojis - use words. They could pass any given prompt as long as they posted they were passing (and not ghosting.) What I observed and learned was the following:

• Emojis - they are temptingly easy to use. Likes and Loves give us Pavlovian warm fuzzies. The absence of Likes or any Emojis opens a wormhole of doubt. Without a facial expression for more information, we don’t have much to go on.

• The privacy of the space, the group members’ trust in me to keep and create a safe place, the members’ own willingness to risk vulnerability created comments that were qualitatively authentic - no sugar coating, no easy memes. Honest, sometimes painful, open-ended grief, questions, and struggles. We sweat and bled and laughed and ached. We stared down our own limitations, fears, and pain and witnessed others in theirs.

• The experiment ended as I promised after a month. The group was closed and deleted. The learnings it offered lived on. The benefits of a community, however temporary, stood out for me.

• I need to keep trying at community. Even in my awkward, goofy way. I need to keep trying. I am also convinced that I cannot keep trying to create my own groups and call it good. We all need to keep trying at community.

The Rise of Running Clubs. A recent news article noted that during/after the pandemic people were looking for ways to gather safely outside. Running is normally a solo exercise, but running clubs have changed it into a quick way to meet and bond with others. Am I going to be joining a running club? Hell, no said my knees. I was intrigued, however, by the human desire to gather and bond AND that it happens more quickly when people can see others sweating, struggling, failing, and celebrating. The article said,

“the groups are popular because running facilitates deep connections. Unlike in most social settings, members see one another exhausted, struggling and sweaty - a vulnerable combination…one member said that the community felt similiar to the one she had found at church as a child. She said, religion gives you a group of people who are willing to take action and help you at any time, be there in your corner and support you and celebrate you…the run club gives you that too.”

The Who’s rock opera Tommy ends with a song that became an anthem for a generation’s need for unity and connection:

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me

Listening to you I get the music

Gazing at you I get the heat

Following you I climb the mountain

I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you I see the millions

On you I see the glory

From you I get opinions

From you I get the story

The way forward for us all is seeing, feeling, touching, healing…and finding a way to do that in whatever form…together.

Peace,

debgrant