Thoughts on "Bringing Life Back to the Village"
Maria Falbo's vision of life that is "rich, slow and divine".
I recently met Maria Falbo via Twitter.
We chatted via Zoom last week, and she told me about the work she is doing, to buy a house in her ancestral town in Italy, and to “bring life back to that town”.
What resonated to me about her vision, was that it was about people.
At this point in time, we all are facing numerous crises: climate, cost-of-living, housing, supply chain, pandemic, etc.
Nation-states are not going to protect us or save us, and we are not going to regenerate the planet by building more software.
Community comes first.
Real community. Generations-old community, if possible.
When you think about it, this is many places, both urban and rural.
This type of community exists and is accessible in Queens, New York, or Bloomington, Indiana, or a small village in Calabria, in Italy.
“Bringing life back to the village.”
Maria shares a vision in her recent piece, “Bringing life back to the village.”, of what this type of community looks, and feels, like.
The piece is rich and experiential. I’ve read it a few times and I’m impressed by how immersive and direct the writing feels, of what living in this type of village feels like.
I’ll share some of the parts that resonated with me.
“Regenerating the world around us starts from within”
When we heal ourselves and our bodies, we heal the world around us. Regenerating the world around us starts from within.
This resonates with this idea that “community is a function of shadow”, tweeted by @the_wilderless recently.
At first, I took that to mean that “every community has its own shared taboos”, but now I see that, perhaps, the strongest communities are those where it’s members have healed the most.
“Healed the most” is subjective, but I think it may be that those in the community are healed by it.
Community is a salve for those belonging to it.
If loneliness kills, community heals.
This is essentially the thesis from journalist Johann Hari’s book on depression, “Lost Connections”. In the book, Hari shares his journey navigating different treatments for his own depression, with each treatment occupying its own chapter.
This is probably the single-best book about depression I’ve read. I recommend it.
“Life is rich, slow and divine”
Life is rich, slow and divine. The old essence reinterpreted into something new, but still shining brightly. The old butcher shop reopening. The local farmers supported. Houses don’t need to be touched, they just need to be lived in.
I can picture this.
I can picture a morning golden hour. People waking up all over a small town. Windows opening to a new day. Newspapers hitting the front door step. Farmers greeting each other in the morning. People taking their dogs for a morning walk and waving hi to each other.
Life happens like this all over the world, but I wouldn’t say it’s the norm. Maybe it once was in many places. In many places it still is.
Some mornings feel like this in Ridgewood, Queens. Other days are loud, grouchy, abrasive, agitated, hot.
I live in one of the biggest, dirtiest, most densely populated cities in the world, so this is to be expected.
There are things I like too–I’m grateful I rarely have to drive, and I often feel like I am a part of multiple communities here.
Regeneration Is (Usually) Complicated
It seems like, in America, the task of regenerating land, towns, and cities is bleak, and/or complicated.
For instance, in NYC, there is tons of community activity, mutual aid, etc. but “regenerating” a neighborhood or the city itself is a tall order indeed.
Property is expensive and there are heaps of regulatory hoops to jump through.
There is lots of life in this city, but it is not slow, and I would not say this city is a place that values human life. It is not designed to provide the basic material necessities for people, or for fostering connection.
Still, we find a way to soldier on, while the housing crisis intensifies, the cost-of-living continues to rise, and the city’s vulnerable populations such as the homeless and the elderly are left to rot, save for community-driven projects.
Human-Powered Community > Tech-Driven “Solutions”
There are many people online proposing concepts and systems to contend with the variety of factors inherent in bringing life back to neglected or atrophying parts of this country–be they urban, small town, or rural.
People have visions of “a solarpunk future”, and of complicated cryptocurrency-driven, fractionalized carbon credits, and regenerative ecovillages.
Solarpunk is sexy. I want that too, along with fully automated luxury communism, just like everybody else.
But tech-driven solutions to housing and community miss the point. The material costs are too high, and they’re not what’s needed for people to thrive.
I ask you, who is going to pay for the land, the infrastructure, and the solar panels, some billionaire or private equity fund?
I’m sure they will totally have the community’s best interests at heart, and won’t act like spoiled dictators when things don’t go their way. /s
Are these things really necessary? Do we really need blockchain, or startup cities, or whatever other tech-driven solutions exist that claim to solve the various crises of inequality we face today in America?
Crypto still hasn’t proven a use case beyond financial speculation, and startup cities sound like a terrible idea–one common statistic is that 90% of startups fail.
If the end goal is a more meaningful, slower, richer life, why not focus on that first, and then saving the world?
Yes, the world is on fire.
No, I don’t think a DAO is going to fix it.
If anything, the climate crisis is already happening, and will continue to do so. Strong communities are what will survive this inevitable period of upheaval.
Strong communities are what will survive long enough to build the practices and movements needed to steer the world towards becoming more sane and livable again.
We are going to need each other, so let’s start now.
Let’s focus on putting community, interdependency, and a sense of the sacred first, rather than pinning our dreams to whatever the startup founders and capitalist class are trying to sell us.
Life should be “slow, rich and divine”.
Perhaps moving towards a slower, more interdependent, and more meaningful life is the most important work to be done, in a world that is in chaos.
“A language of soulful living”
Dinner together, never alone, unless you are calling for solitude. Food so deeply connected to the land that holds you. Smiles to the elders, let them teach us, so that we too can pass on that magic wisdom that the world so desperately needs. Learning a new language, a language of soulful living, of love, of a life that has been forgotten…
What if abundance could be collated communally. How could we learn to share once again. Share each others learnings and capacities to thrive.
I invite you to read the rest of Maria’s piece. It is a lucid and tangible vision of what life in a community can be.
There are communities like this all over the world. Ironically, they are not in the hyper-atomized, “developed” countries that many of us live in.