Yesterday, I called out to the elderly neighbours, but they weren't home, so I went ahead and did the same as what I have a couple tines before. I trimmed their side of the hedge. It isn't a hard job for the most part, just awkward and takes some time, and then the raking of the cuttings after. While I was starting the raking, they came home and I said that I had gone ahead and done it, and they were grateful. When you are in your mid-eighties, getting some unsolicited help is likely a blessing, but also a reminder of that feeling of loss of capability.
I was having a discussion with a therapist the other day, who believes that I have trouble asking for help, which might be true. However, I also think that we shouldn't always have to ask for help. Not because we are so independent and self-sufficient, but because people will offer support without being directly asked.
This is being compassionate.
But it requires paying attention to the environment and situations of others to be able to identify when help might be required. Too often though, people rely on empathy to do this, which means having to feel something first, which works as the trigger to help. This means that if someone doesn't feel that trigger fire, help can never be offered. And in a society that has optimised for self-absorption and -satisfaction, fewer people see when help is required outside of their own narrow focus area, let alone have the will and sense of duty to actually offer support.
Compassion on the other hand gets triggered as soon as there is the identification of a potential need, even if it doesn't generate an emotional response. This means it doesn't require being able to identify with the issue personally, just that there is an issue that someone else has and they may need some help. It is a far more robust mechanism for diverse community support, but it has been undermined by the continual drive to value emotions first and foremost.
While I don't like relying on people, I also acknowledge I have my own gaps as needs. Not asking for support means I a not going to get any in the current culture, and I find it incredibly sad. I a not talking about from strangers or doctors who don't know me, but from those closest. Even when people see I have a need, they will not offer. There are many reasons for it as we all have our own issues, but that is the thing about building a healthy community, because some personal issues can be shared amongst the group to lighten the load for everyone.
It is no wonder to me why so many people are having mental health issues, because life has become more complex, as well as more individualistic. Everyone seems to have doubled-down on independence and the "everyone dies alone" position, without considering if we have to live alone also.
We don't, yet we are.
Vulnerability isn't just about asking for help from others, it is also about being open to helping others, sometimes even when it isn't at first welcome. I don't want to step on the neighbours toes and give them the feeling of incapability on old age, because I know what it is to be reliant on others to do what I could do earlier. Yet, I also know they aren't going to ask me to do it, even though they know I will happily help them.
Healthy community closes the gaps.
Hedges are barriers, but they are shared barriers that grow and change over time. They aren't fences to keep the others out, they are borders that cause neighbours to collaborate. It takes both sides of the fence to be maintained for the hedge to look good, and the responsibility of maintainenance belongs to each side. But, just like a hedge grows and changes, so too do neighbours ad that means that while the responsibility of maintenance might not shift, the performance of maintenance can.
If I see someone in need in the walking world, I will help. I don't need to know them, I don't need to relate to their situation. I don't need to feel bad for them, or feel like helping at all. All I need is to recognise they might be in need, and then offer a hand. They don't have to accept if they choose, but they can if they want.
The world is changing rapidly due to technology and while it offers lots of aids and convenience, it is also going to create a lot of gaps in people's experience, and cause a lot of suffering. Yet, because we have created a near global culture of individualism and self-gratification, disconnected from others in a delusion of self-sufficiency, communities and society as a whole has become hostile, and an everyone in it for themselves space. Community is no longer a supportive framework, because it has been eroded down, bonds broken, until all that is left are small units struggling to do the best they can for themselves, with no regard to others.
Micro corporations.
It makes us all vulnerable.
It makes us all weaker.
The hedges have become walls that cannot withstand the pressures of time, and when they fall, there is no defense, because we stand and live alone.
The way we all die.
Taraz
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