Social Networking - Modern Day Moai
Lately, I have been thinking about relationships and the strength they bring to our lives.
With that on my mind, this week I read an insightful article about “the power of many” in an investment newsletter. As evidence of how personal relationships empower us in the midst of these unsettled economic times, the article noted an interesting custom I read about several years ago in Dan Buettner’s eye-opening book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest .
The custom comes from the island of Okinawa, where for years people have formed social cooperatives called moai. Essentially, moai are informal groups formed by people who want to count on and cooperate with each other. Members of these ad hoc co-ops commit to offer emotional, social or even financial assistance to one another. While moai are often practical in their collaborative purposes, they also provide a way for men and women to share stress during difficult times and to serve as a sort of extended family. Being a member of a moai offers people everything from longterm friendships to group problem-solving, from financing a business to responding to a personal crisis. In fact, according to a post at the Japan Update website, because the main aspect of a moai is trust, these groups and the inherent relationships are often an essential part of a person’s sense of well-being.
This concept of forming a group with shared goals and inherent trust is not dissimilar to the innovative and very successful microlending circles established by the Grameen Bank in small villages in India for which Mohammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize (and about which I have written before). In those rural groups, courageous women formed teams to develop the entrepreneurial plans of each individual by supporting their endeavors and sharing in the responsibility of repayment of microloans. Those loans and the relationships of trust that developed transformed the lives of the women involved, their families and whole communities, not to mention giving the whole world a new tool for economic progress!
While I have long believed in the old adage that two heads are better than one, finding the article about the value of support groups in a financial publication with a reference to a traditional cultural custom affirms for me the universal relevance of the InSpiritry tenets of Community and Collaboration. We, humans, need each other. We are hard-wired to live and work in families, groups, villages and teams. We are most successful when we take advantage of the synergy of our cooperative efforts, and we are healthiest and happiest in relationships with others who care about us.
So what does that mean for us in our everyday lives?
Many of us feel isolated, even in crowded spaces. Most people move several times in their lives. Families have become geographically and culturally disparate. Neighbors are less likely to know their neighbors. Coworkers are separated into cubicles until they drive home isolated in their cars. Cell phones interrupt conversations. Computers demand our singular attention. Thinking about all that made me sad at first, but then I realized that new communication technologies have an up side. They give us new and innovative ways to connect with one another. Cell phones, texting, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Open Source sites, Wiki sites and the hundreds of special interest and industry websites all operate because millions of people are interacting every day!
Could these new forms of social networking become our high tech version of moai? Can we form personal circles of emotional and practical support? I would like to think so, but to follow the affirming examples of Okinawa and India, we will need to move our interactions beyond one phrase tweets and entertaining FaceBook games to deeper conversations. We will need to truly become involved with one another. We will need to listen and to care!
Just yesterday I had reason to believe that could happen. On a social network site I frequent, a young woman submitted a short but frantic post: My mother is dying…and there’s nothing we can do. I was stunned. Reaching out to those she knew would be “listening”, the woman was sending a post from her phone as her family got the awful news from the doctor. Immediately and for the next few hours, compassionate comments were posted as friends (and others) sent words of comfort. This morning, her newest posting was a response of gratitude and strength to those who encircled her with their words.
What about you? Do you have a circle of support? Is it your family? Your neighbors? Your coworkers? Your church? Or, like so many of us, have you come to depend on wireless and online technologies to connect you with people you care about and who care about you?
Whatever your mode of interaction, Barbara Bush’s advice is worth restating: Value your relationships. Care. Share. Listen. And then invite those you care about into a circle of support; form your own moai! Then together, practice InSpiritry: Be in Community. Connect. Cooperate. Collaborate. Celebrate. Who knows, like the women of India, social networkworking may transform society, and like people of Okinawa, we may live to see 100!
InSpiritry is a Path to the Greater Good.
When We Form Relationships, We Can Be a Blessing!
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