Village

...

I woke up from a dream that's recurred to me in some form or another for the past few years. I'm crossing the street from my old apartment to go to campus, backpack in tow. It's September, and the weather's still nice and warm, but cloudy, and as I enter Westdale Village, I find it is bustling with hundreds of people.

Then the "village" becomes an actual town square, bustling with students, professionals heading off to work in Toronto and downtown Hamilton, and merchants and store owners selling their wares. It feels Medieval, with stone-paved walkways old stone and brick buildings that line the walkways like walls. and historic plaques here and there commemorating one event or person or another. As I walk, I run into people I know everyday, say hello, and then find my way across to the main square, where I turn left and see a path to the campus. I turn to head in that direction, knowing that I'm going the right way, and I wake up.

I've never lived in an actual tribal village - Westdale is the closest "village" I've experienced - , but the dream and its variations have these primal qualities attached to them that say to me that it doesn't matter if I lived in one: we all did at one point. The vast majority of the history of human experience is that of the small village of no more than, say, a hundred or two hundred people at most. We are genetically accustomed to it, much as our bodies still retain other patterns from our primitive past, like the ease with which the body stores fat, and the difficulty involved in burning it off; our fear of heights, etc..

I'm not talking about anything as esoteric as reincarnation, though I don't doubt the likelihood: I'm talking about genetic memory, passed on through blood and DNA, that suddenly runs smack dab up against advanced 21st Century mass living.

In Medieval Times, the village was the basic settlement unit for much of the European population. You typically didn't go further afield than one square mile, knew everyone within, and your whole life, from cradle to grave, took place within that square mile. You ate whatever local produce or game was around, you drank and bathed in the local water supply, you picked your mates - or had your mates picked for you by Mom and Dad - from whoever was available in the area, and you either built a new house or lived in your parents' old one in the area. You could read the same story for the populations of India, much of Asia, Africa, and elsewhere in the world.

It seems like such a sheltered existence, one that didn't have much in the way of individual privacy - individual rights being a relatively modern invention, only three hundred years old in 2010 - and that turned people into xenophobes, encouraged ignorance and superstition, and probably a lot of tyranny from the local government. And yet, it gave people something that we don't often have today: a sense of connection and belonging, a community of people whom we know and who know us very well.

It's why I like downtown areas of old cities, like Burlington, or not-so-old "designed" villages like Westdale, that retain qualities of those traditional villages: one or two main streets, central areas where people can meet and sit and talk, a few central pubs, the occasional street festival or outdoor farmer's market.

The way we design cities in 2010 isn't terribly conducive to creating communities, and while it takes far more than sound urban planning to create a sense of community in any given area, it certainly doesn't help when what we typically get are cookie-cutter properties and McMansions that insulate their owners from wanting to connect much with their neighbours, where we see almost the exact same Big Box Shopping Plaza in every city, where you can't get anything you need without having to drive there (and public transit is just awkward).

It's why so many people feel lonely. We all miss, on a genetic level, that feeling of the "tribe". I'm lucky to belong to a great "tribe" of friends who are, in many ways, more family than family (and I have family, too, whom I'm also blessed to have an hour away), but, in typical 21st Century fashion, we're scattered across distances that far exceed the Medieval square-mile of lifetime experience. We don't see each other daily, and though we talk and text, it's not the same as real human contact. And as I enter into the distinctly postmodern concept of singlehood, I find myself looking for that connection.

It's why, I think, so many people become codependent in relationships. We know that many couples isolate themselves from the group - the guy stops going out with his buddies, the girl stops spending time with her girlfriends - and they do everything together. For a while, all is love and sex and magic, and you're okay with that.

But at some point, the desire for community kicks in, even though you don't recognize it for what it is. It's this feeling of loneliness even when you're with your loved one, that longing for a collective connection that one person simply can't provide. But you expect them to provide it to you, and so you feel terribly alone when you don't get it. When all you can get is the attention of the other person, if you're not careful, you can find yourself addicted to what he or she has to give you, even though it's not enough, and that will put your relationship in danger.

There's a popular trend in pop psych circles today: "I'm okay on my own". That may be true, we can be "okay" alone: we can function, we can wash, clothe, feed, and shelter ourselves. We can hold jobs. And yes, we can do many things that are best done on our own, like painting a canvas or writing a book.

But that's just being "okay". What if you want "extraordinary"? What if you're looking for more than just an ordinary life? Or what if you simply want to belong somewhere?

It's not a weakness to have these needs: only our highly individidualistic society would make you feel like it's something wrong. Individualism has its advantages, of course, and I'm glad that we're talking more about free individuals creating new communities as opposed to communities stifling the ambitions and rights of individuals. And I'm not a Luddite: I love technology and can't imagine living in a better time than now.

But we crave collective belonging, it's in our blood, in the invisible fabric of our dreams, and we should not be ashamed to need community. That's not codependency, it's interdependency.

And though my ethereal vision of the village near my old alma mater is nowhere near the reality of the very laid back, very cozy Westdale where my ex and I spent much of our twenties, it still carries with it the overarching feeling of home, of a place that I belong, and a village that all of us, in our 21st Century condos and daily commutes, are trying to get back to in real life.

That's why I think so many of us dream of the village. It's not only an archetype, but a memory, and an awareness of our common desire to find community, and to finally go home.

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