How Falling Into a Pool Taught Me What Community Is Worth [#40]

Last year I visited the Traditional Dream Factory (TDF), a regenerative community playground in Alentejo, Portugal, for our annual Citizen Gathering. TDF was my first touchpoint with community living. I met amazing people there, and I keep meeting more. It's one of the reasons I chose to build a life in community.

This time, I brought my partner to see the place for the first time. We arrived after a long drive. Even though I felt a bit off, I wanted to give her the tour right away. We walked up the hill while I told her about the plans and vision for the place.

Then it happened. We were on the newly built pool deck; I looked right, explaining something, while taking a step to the left. I fell into the pool that didn't have water at the time. It felt like slow motion, and while it happened, a sharp pain shot through my knee. It brought back the memory of my old knee injury. I had to cry.

Just like that, what I planned to be a fun week turned into something else. Luckily, there was someone who knew something about knee injuries and could test what it was: a severely sprained knee.

Relief. At least it wasn't a ripped ligament.

But the more time that passed while I needed to walk on crutches, the more helpless I felt.

The week turned into a self-discovery and personal development program. I experienced feeling helpless, being a burden, and being too much.

At the beginning, I only asked my partner for help, which put a lot of care work on her shoulders. Then, slowly, I let myself be carried by the community: I asked for help with carrying things. I asked if someone could bring me water. I asked for a hug when I felt down and could not participate in activities.

That might sound small. For someone who usually takes care of himself, asking was a big step.

Why asking was so hard for me

So why is asking for help so hard for me?

I think the root lies in individualism. Most of us were raised in nuclear families, and the idea that we should solve our own problems is widespread. Especially for men, there's the archetype of the lone wolf, who provides, copes, and takes care of himself, without needing anyone. This seemed to have been deeply imprinted in me.

The thing is, for over 95% of our species' history, we lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers. We depended on each other. Being thrown out of the group often meant death.

Now, we voluntarily isolate ourselves because we're told it's freedom and autonomy, while it produces anxiety and depression.

I think "a life on your own terms" has helped produce a loneliness epidemic. 57% of young Europeans aged 18 to 35 feel at least moderately lonely, and 17% (about 1 in 6) feel severely lonely (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2024).

Lonely people are twice as likely to develop depression (WHO, 2025), and loneliness is also linked to anxiety, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.

It makes sense. Relationships and connection are key to meaning in life. We have the need for being seen and being listened to, to connect to self, others, and the living world around us. We need to experience and share empathy and vulnerability to be happy.

At a time when we need people who are alive and act towards the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, this can't stay like this.

And I think this matters beyond my knee. Our independence runs on cheap energy. When energy gets expensive, as it did this year when the Iran war pushed up gas prices in Europe, the services we buy instead of asking each other get harder to afford.

Money can't replace community forever.

In a simpler, lower-energy future, mutual help is infrastructure. It's social capital. What I want to practise more now is interdependence: help that flows both ways.

People who have genuine connection are less vulnerable to platforms that simulate it. And if you're not desperate, you're harder to exploit.

What my knee taught me about community

1. If you refuse to ask for help, you take away someone's chance to care.

Caring is a human need. But we often hold back because we don't want to overstep and help someone who doesn't need it. When you ask, you give someone the chance to care.

Asking for help is a gift.

2. It's the other person's job to say no. And that's okay, too.

When we anticipate how our question for help might impact other people, we often get to the conclusion that maybe they don't want to help. But instead of guessing in our heads, we can just ask.

People need to learn how to say no when they can't or don't want to do something, and it's our job to accept a no without feeling rejected.

If you really need something, ask for help, and be okay with getting a no.

3. Self-compassion helps healing.

Beating yourself up about why this injury happened to you, how you're self-responsible for it, and so on, has never helped.

This self-judgement just wastes energy that you could use for healing yourself and mindfulness activities to connect with the injury.

I think that shift helped my knee heal faster. I can't prove it for my knee, but there's research linking (mental) stress to slower wound healing.

4. The obstacle is the way.

The faster you can accept what has happened, the faster you can move forward.

It's healthy to take some time to grieve.

Then asking what's great about this, and how it helps you grow, brings you better answers than fighting the existing reality.

5. Spread the care, or it all lands on one person

In the first days, I only asked my partner for help. All the care work landed on her shoulders.

Once I started asking others too, the load got shared among the community. I feel that a partnership is a small community of 2, and it holds up better inside a bigger one.

During the time at the gathering, I noticed something: you can measure the wealth of a community by the amount of care in it. TDF has its individualistic sides too, of course. But that week, it was rich.

So, when was the last time you asked for help, and what happened?

Try this week

Learn to ask for help. Ask for one small thing this week from a friend or someone you know to get the habit of asking. Also, if someone asks you for help, be there to give it. Or gently say no, if you can't.

Community starts in the neighborhood. Learn the names of five neighbors as a start to build community. These are the ones you can ask for help when shit hits the fan.

Join or start 1 recurring local group. Whether it's a weekly potluck with friends around, a weekly card game round, or something more organized towards ecological or social regeneration. Whatever it might be, a recurring local group does more against loneliness than anything else.