Meaningful Community
Unplugging, the New Romanticism, and Me
Is "Meaningful Online Community" what we need?
In the past six months, I’ve been inundated with offers to join yet another online group promising meaning, connection, the answer to…everything ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Every workshop or course now seems to justify its cost with the great supposed benefits of “MOC” or “MOE” (meaningful online engagement). And every platform wants to amplify its significance with opportunities to connect more, More, MORE!
As a joiner, I love invitations to community, meeting new people, sharing experiences. I appreciate learning from a collective. But I’m only a semi-extrovert, and as a writer and mom, my introverted side requires regular attention. These “MOC” or “MOE” opportunities offer the ultimate magical solution to modern life’s time press. Right?
I’m…not sure.
Pandemic isolation generated loads of opportunities to find like-minded fellow travelers on the creating journey - accountability groups, partners willing to come alongside in motivational adult parallel play, platforms to teach, challenge, encourage, etc. Several years on, a lot of interactive rituals born during 2020-2021 still help structure my creative work.
But like so much in our world, there’s no stopping at “enough.” Many promising community ideas have quickly devolved into attention-sucking time hogs. Overpromotion runs rampant. It’s hard to sift out legitimate opportunities from marketing schemes. And I’m thinking that such supply abundance is killing what once felt special.
What are we really doing when we spend time in echo chambers or typing out yet another supportive emoji? Are the response expectations in Slack/Discord networks or Facebook groups actually community?
I don’t want to slip into Ludditism/Luddism, or let technology pass me by. But I am nevertheless failing to find much magic or meaning in new opportunities for online community. I don’t want to have to respond when I’m in a season of taking in information or when I’m full up.
Enter a New Romanticism.
Honest Broker Ted Gioia suggests that exhaustion/frustration with technocracy, algorithms, and their way of defining the world is producing predictable reactions by artistic classes, just like in the 19th century, as the industrial revolution burned out all but the 1%. Hmmm.
like how writer and book coach, Brooke Adams Law talks of taking a week to completely unplug each year, which “does something amazing to my nervous system,” making her calmer, slower, sillier, less reactive, and more fun - “the fertile soil in which creativity thrives.”
or how fellow Seattle Substacker Heretic Hereafter’s Katharine Strange realizes the miracle of attention after de-activating social media accounts.
or how Time Management for Mortals author, Oliver Burkeman urges us to “make sure your psychological centre of gravity is in your real and immediate world,” because reality is right here, NOT in pressure-filled news reports or urgent provocations to engage.
That is encouragement for my romantic, magic-seeking soul.
The best thing that happened in my week was Saturday’s sunny PNW “faux spring.” It issued a purely of the moment invitation to yard work. But then, an hour trimming messy, overwintered plants led to chatting with neighbors about a bald eagle hanging out in a nearby tree. Real time conversation led to more, with wine, on a porch across the street. At the end of the day, I’d felt no pressure to craft a response, stake a position, assert my brand or keep up with an asynchronous conversation.
Meaningful community the old-fashioned way.
It felt like magic.
A movement to unplug named after my favorite Taylor Swift song? Sign me up!
(Also, thanks for the shout out!)
I loved this one, Stephanie! So relatable. I sometimes feel that I should be joining all these different groups, doing all these different things to move my writing forward, but sometimes it becomes too much, and I really wonder, what is the point? So thanks for putting it all in perspective!