Valuing Community
I have often talked with my parents about the possibility that an absence of religion in my life might mean an absence of a community. Their concern, as I understand it, is that by not prescribing to a religion I won’t have access to a community, outside of family, in the same way that they had. That I wouldn’t have support from a wider network of people. Community, in their own lives, has been a huge driving force and it subsequently played an enormous part of my childhood. Values around hospitality and service were drilled into us as kids. We understood that it was important to open our home to people who needed it and to always cook more than enough dinner in case someone dropped by. To me these values were ones that started with my parents. For them, they were derivative of their relationship and experience of their religion.
I know that throughout my parents’ lives the Church was a community that supported them and provided them with a reliable network of like-minded people. When our house burned down, for instance, it was people from the Church who rallied and provided help. There is a comfort that I believe comes with religion: it immediately groups you with people who are like you, with the same priorities and values. Without that structure it can feel challenging to find this group of people for yourself. As I’ve grown up I’ve started to think about what a lack of religion might mean for me and my own community. Where will my community of people congregate, what rituals will we have, what will our shared values be?
When I studied improvised comedy, (which I’m aware doesn’t sound like something you should be able to study), I found for the first time an organised community with a shared set of values that I could relate to. The values were not spiritual and not ideological. Instead, they were a set of rules about how you behave on stage when you’re creating an improvised scene. The central rule of any improvised scene is that you respond to everything with “yes, and”. You accept whatever offer a person gives you and you build upon it. You don’t block them. If you’re in a scene and someone says: “It’s great to be at the zoo today”, you immediately accept you’re at the zoo and add to it — you: “Isn’t it! Those lions are terrifying.” You accept what they’ve offered and you build on it, you “yes, and.” In this way, improv is about constantly adapting to your new reality and finding a way to contribute to it meaningfully. It’s a way of thinking that encourages you to trust your scene partner and to grow on their ideas. It teaches you about flexibility and collaboration.
In many ways, the rules of improv, have naturally kept a check and balance on my life. So often our instinct is to judge, or to roadblock an idea because it’s not what we’re used to. We can get caught in patterns that tell us our line of thinking is the correct way, or sometimes we just steam roll ahead without noticing that the world around us is changing. The joy for me in my life has been finding a community of people who also take this way of thinking into their lives. That’s not to say all people who improvise think like this. In my time studying in New York I did many classes and shows with an assortment of people, all obeying this philosophy to varying degrees. And it’s not to say, that you have to improvise to operate like this. But I’ve found it works for me and I’ve noticed that I’ve begun to surround myself with like-minded people. I have found in my adult life that there is still opportunity for community outside of religion.
I’ve come through comedy and university, with a strong network of friends. Some I live with, some I just socialise with and many I work with. We have a shared values system, but it isn’t framed by a religion. The ideology of the group is self-regulating. We hold each other accountable. And as relationships fall apart or friendships hit hard times, it refines what your own boundaries and priorities are. I’ve been extremely lucky in my life to be brought up with parents who derived their values from their religion but then gave me a way to live those values outside of it.
Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 225, April 2018: 27.