The Power of Community

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

Recently, I have been witnessing the power of community in action.

Whether it's working on (holy) BLOOD with my company Theater Mitu or the way a group of individuals rallied around my friend before her Boston Marathon run this past Friday, I can’t stop thinking about the power of community.

Indeed, the African proverb rings true:

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

It reminded me of something I learned working in community in Egypt, Africa, and India over the past fifteen years.

When I would ask my friends how they are doing - they constantly answered as a community instead of an individual.

So, instead of saying, “I am doing well” or “I am not doing well”, they would say - “We are well” or “We are not well.”

It’s a simple change of language, but to me, it affirms that the solitary isolated human being is a fiction.

In these cultures, my friends greet me as a relative. They say, “Hello brother”.

To me, it’s a gentle reminder that we are all one.

I carry that with me to this day.

Who is your community? How do they show up for you, especially in the moments when you are not around them? How can you carry that with you today?

A CREATIVE TOOL

In July of 2022, while working on (holy) BLOOD, we started exploring how to more concretely work with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s film - Santa Sangre.

Through various experiments, we landed on scoring the film through music and emotional foley. A lot of our creative practice focuses on what something feels like vs the representational.

Often, when I feel stuck in creation - I ask myself this simple question as a tool - “What does it feel like, and how can I manifest that?”

A PIECE OF ART

“I Want to Write Something So Simply” by Mary Oliver

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read
you keep feeling it
and though it be my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think—
no, you will realize—
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your heart
had been saying.

Grateful,

Michael