Living in Flux; The Power of Neighbourhoods

Everything is in flux. Everything is in flux to sustain itself. Everything is connected, if only in sustaining itself.

For humanity, flux can be mitigated to some degree, with order. Of course not all flux recgonsises order, chaos can strike at will, but systems provide the appearance of certainty to help us plan our future days. Systems that arc across every facet of our lives; from socio-economic, political & technological to everything in between. Systems by their nature connect us, but what I am unsure of is whether systems remind us we are connected or if they unconsciously mask our interdependence? Of course systems can be manipulated and I am not looking to explore how we arrived at our current set of systems, although Graeber & Wengrow do an excellent job of that in The Dawn of Everything. I am curious to dig a little deeper around our connectivity amidst the flux.

A decade of working across the homeless sector, revealed a profound truth for me; whilst many could survive without shelter and limited food, very few, if any could survive without human connection. I am aware that ‘community’ may feel like a bankrupt word, but the process of doing life with a group of people, who I can disagree or agree with, support or be supported, argue or align with, but always retain the fabric of a safe and enabling environment is what community means to me, and for that reason, I will unapologetically continue to use it.

I recall living with a slum community on the outskirts of Chennai, India, for a brief period at the turn of the century. Many bodies in tight proximity, with limited nutrition, sanitation and clean water. One afternoon in conversation with an elder, I asked how the community copes with stress and anxiety? He began laughing, the kind of laugh that made me instantly feel like I had missed the point. “Those are western diseases” He said. The community in Chennai demonstrated an implicit knowledge of interdependence. Yes, the community was in need of recovery but not in need of a systems change, these I feel, are distinct.

Indeed the interdependence of a community is where I personally find the best space for personal growth. Not that an individual cannot grow independently, but I have found, in my limited experience of my own life, that only when growing with others can I recognise if I have changed. Reminding me of Manet’s mirror in the Bar at Follie Berger. A question I often challenge myself with; what do we see when we look in the mirror? What do you do when you do not recognise the refelction? A community where we are free to disagree is one where every member can be a mirror to each other.

Before travelling to India, I briefly became friends with an interatnional & Premiership footballer who showed an interest in social change. We agreed to meet and share some thoughts. On our first meeting he confided in me. Although he was surrounded by many people, he felt desperately alone, so much so that he was asking personal advice from a stranger. The opposite of the community in Chennai in almost every aspect. He didnt feel he had a community that would disagree with him, or one that he could argue with in the confidence that they could still remain connected. He had no community mirrors. Matthew Syed makes the case for diverse thinkers in Rebel Ideas, and every community is richer for people who think differently.

Back in 2016, before setting up the world’s first record label to offer accredited and non accredited qualifications in UK prisons (InHouse Records) I hosted a series of cynic clinics. Workshops where I invited a group of people whom might radically oppose such an initiative. Not only were these sessions pleasant, they produced incredible insights that later went onto fashion the label.

Cormac Russell has spent much of his life exploring the power of communities and in Rekindling Democracy highlights the hidden value, often inert & invisible, within our communities. Highlighting the consequences of living independently; issues of wellbeing, debt, relational network erosion, inequality and prejudice.

Heraclitus wrote a book called On Nature over 2500 years ago. He began by declaring “everything is in flux” He continued to write that we are all interconnected, through flux and diversity. “Sea is the purest and most polluted water: for fish drinkable and healthy, for men undrinkable and harmful.”

The diversity that Heraclitus refrers to reminds me of Taleb’s AntiFragilty. I am not dismissing independence. Autonomy is an essential part of personal growth, ensuring we are able to operate as our own advocates in society, or when this is not possible, the role of advocacy is provided for those who do not have a voice (yet) or the agency to amplify their needs or thoughts. Independence, however essential, should be rooted with the deeper knowledge that we are connected.

Heraclitus noted that everything is in flux and our response should be to deepen our interdependence and in doing so, becoming stronger in our understanding of each other. The safe and enabling environments we need to cultivate in order to experience a deeper understanding of each other are found in the fabric of our relationships; our love, tolerance and compassion.

Acting as mirrors for each other to see failure more clearly; reminding ourselves that the resources we seek for recovery are almost certainly abundant in the community we find ourselves in. Adapting, communicating and being accountable to one another because we all inhabit this small planet and breathe the same air.

My work focuses on applying design to societal challenges, almost exclusively about the co-creation of safe and enabling environments where the space for change can provide agency. These spaces, are made to feel safe and familiar because that is what community looks like for me. A child immigrant from the Middle East, growing up in 70’s London, safe spaces were not always easy to come by, but the ingredients for these spaces became more and more apparent to me by their absence, or maybe their invisibility.

My work has been to seek out these ingredients, and carefully look to add them into safe spaces when exploring design in the most challenging circumstances. Maybe that’s the most applied design can hope for, is to make visible that which is hidden within neighbourhoods and communities?

How can we connect in this post pandemic contactless world?
Heraclitus reminds us that we were never disconnected in the first place.
By embracing our interdependence, like the Pando in Utah, we are able to foster harmony amidst flux, indeed the greater the chaos, the deeper the interdependence. Everything is in flux but I beleive that by acknowledging & building on our interdependence, we can both sustain ourselves and find better ways of being human.