On Meaningful Encounters - Connection, Collaboration, Creation & Fun [#15]

It started with a colourful breakfast and cheerful vibes.

More neighbours and friends joined, and we started discussing the plan of the day: cutting & chopping firewood, building a new chicken coop, redoing the compost, and starting new gardening beds.

20 of us split up into teams and went at it.

It was my first time at a work party, but it surely won’t be the last.

The energy and fun when the community comes together with the goal to connect and help one of the many housing projects in the area is sublime.

It’s a transformational experience. There is no transaction involved.

Everyone comes because they want to help, not because they have to. This internal motivation is key and leads to amazing co-creation.

Everyone is supporting each other. So when you need a break, you chill, and someone else keeps moving the wheelbarrow with firewood. The pace of work is smooth and in line with your physical strengths. No one looks at efficiency and how fast things are going.

You are in flow most of the time.

There was laughter all around the property. When you didn’t want to cut wood anymore, you just went to the garden to plant some vegetables. When you wanted to chat to someone, you got a coffee together.

The kids ran around and had their own ways of contributing: bringing around drinks and creating little self-made presents for the people who helped. It was cute.

This way, the atmosphere was relaxed, and I could make new friends and learn to keep a sustainable pace of work.

Some German prejudices about Spanish people are that they are lazy. I think they value relationships more than work. And if you believe, like I do, that relationships are the basis for great work - maybe we can learn something here :-)

After 4-5 hours of work with some breaks in between, we stopped. The results were impressive: a new chicken coop with proper fencing, enough firewood cut and chopped for the whole winter, new garden beds, new compost, a happy family (the hosts) and smiling, accomplished faces all around.

We then went to the restaurant and had a long, lovely Spanish lunch.

What a day. I didn’t look at my phone once.

When talking about social or communal regeneration, concepts are often vague and abstract.

These work parties are a great, concrete tool to bring the broader community together and connect by supporting each other and creating something.

It builds strong bonds and community. Social Capital, if you want to call it that way. Which I believe will be more important in the future than Financial Capital.

The setup is simple:
- talk with friends and neighbours about the idea of organising work parties
- invite interested people to a group in the messenger of your choice (I recommend Signal)
- set the date and place for the first work party. (Saturdays work best)
- invite everyone
- do it :-)

One key here is a good organisation, so everyone can contribute:
- provide different types of work (from less to more physically demanding)
- make sure enough tools are available, and work packages are clear
- have someone responsible for each work type that people can ask when something is unclear

It makes sense to identify projects that need little instruction, so you can be more into the flow and doing, rather than explaining. However, it can also be possible to incorporate projects that need instructions and where people learn a new skill. (e.g. making cob for a cob house).

In South America, they have a name for this type of party: “Minga”. It incorporates playing music and is often about building houses with cob.

The whole event energized me a lot. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday.

Next time, I will bring a big speaker to energise the whole thing even more and make it more of an event that deserves the name "party".

I understand that this type of work party is mostly suited to rural areas, where everyone has access to land and the work that’s involved with managing it.

But the principle applies to city life as well.

When pondering about the meaning of life with close friends, we often came to the “simple” one-sentence conclusion that it’s: “doing nice things with nice people”.

Now, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

What are “nice things”?
And what are “nice people”?

To me, the most meaningful things I did in recent years, where I felt the most resonance, were being part of a coherent group that had a purpose:

• a collective that organises downtempo music open-air raves
• a Lacrosse team that worked together for years to win the National Championship
• a start-up that works on systems change in the agro-food ecosystem
• an NGO that supports bioregions to weave communities of regeneration
• a group of people who became friends, reviving an abandoned village and regenerating the land
• And yes, local work parties

We have become so isolated in our hyper-individualistic world.

Stuck to screens.
Looking to create individual success.
We mostly connect by consuming things together.

What would a world look like where we connect through creation and helping each other?

What are ways we can build that world?

What are your interests that provide opportunities to get together with others and create the "islands of coherence"?

It’s simple, but not easy.

Find something you care about.
Research if someone is doing something about it in your region.
If yes, connect with them.
If not, gather a group of people together and start it.

One key to a meaningful and joyful life is trust-based, deep relationships and a feeling of contributing to something greater than yourself.

In a system that wants you to be an individualistic consumer, you need to take proactive action to connect, collaborate, create, and have fun.

Happy connecting,

Jonas