Episode 20 - Ships in the Night

Loneliness has a way of lying to us. It tells us we’re the only one struggling, even when we’re surrounded by people, even when our phones never stop buzzing, even when we’re “doing meaningful work.” We sit down with labor activist and community advocate Ricardo Di Menezes, network weaver and community builder Laura Istead, and regional minister Rev. Karen Medland to get embarrassingly honest about what disconnection really feels like, and why admitting it can be so hard. 

We trace loneliness through breakups, burnout, ministry expectations, and the strange reality of being on call all the time. Laura shares what it’s like to lead in the nonprofit sector while carrying the pressure to look composed, and how identity can get tangled up in a job until leaving feels terrifying. Karen names how clergy are often told to “self-care” inside systems that practically guarantee isolation, and why the church should be rebuilding community instead of reinforcing performance. 

Then we get practical and political. We explore third spaces meaning the places between home and work where the agenda is simply being human together, and why those spaces have been hollowed out by money, time limits, and post-pandemic habits. We talk social media’s illusion of connection, the rising isolation for LGBTQ communities, and the idea that hope itself can be an act of resistance. Listen, share it with someone who needs it, and if it resonates, subscribe and leave a review so more people can find this conversation.

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Transcript

Connected Yet Lonely

Bill 0:08

We are more connected than any generation in human history, and yet somehow we are more lonely than many that came before us. We text instead of visit and we scroll instead of sitting together. We know what strangers had for lunch, but sometimes we have no idea how the people we love are actually doing. Loneliness is strange because it doesn't always look like being alone. It can look like burnout or grief, and sometimes it looks like sitting in a room full of people and still feeling completely invisible. So tonight we are going to talk honestly about loneliness and all things related to friendship and community and whether we still remember how to belong to one another. So pull up a chair, the coffee is great, and we are glad that you're here. I'm Bill Weaver, and this is Prepare to Drown. Good evening, everybody, and welcome again to the basement of McDougall United Church, where we are here for another episode of Prepare to Drown. But before we begin, I want to say right at the beginning of this podcast that I suspect that almost everybody in the room tonight and everybody that is listening to this podcast online is probably carrying some part of the conversation that we are about to have personally in their own life and in their own experience. Because I know for a fact that some of us are lonely. I know for a fact that some of us are exhausted. Some of us are feeling disconnected from our families or our communities. Some of us are grieving friendships that have quietly faded over time. Some of us are surrounded by people constantly and still somehow feel as though we are completely unheard and unseen. And the strange thing about it all is that loneliness is an embarrassing thing to admit in our culture. So tonight we are going to aspire on this panel to be embarrassingly honest, I think, about the topic that we are discussing. And luckily, for a podcast about loneliness, I do not have to do this alone tonight. Joining us, as always, a regular on our podcast is Ricardo Di Menezes, who is a labor activist and community advocate and probably the fiercest, fiercest DEI advocate that I know. I'm always grateful to have his voice at this table. So thank you again for being here, Ricardo. Thank you. I got the date right this time. You got the date right this time. Yep. We are also joined tonight by Laura Eisted. Laura Eisted uh is a network weaver and community builder. Uh, she's the founder of the Social Sector Club, she's the former executive director of Two Wheel View. She also, if you have been listening to our podcast since the beginning, is still uh a member of the top-ranked episode we have ever done on Prepared Ground from season one. So you can go back and listen to that one as well. Uh her work has always consistently focused on creating spaces where people actually feel connected to one another in a way that is supportive and life-giving. So, Laura, thank you so much for being here tonight.

Laura 2:48

Thanks for having me.

Bill 2:49

And joining us as well is Reverend Karen Medlin sitting in the middle. She's the regional minister for Schneequin's region who has spent years in pastoral ministry and leadership and community care. Uh her own story also reflects a lot of change and experiences of family and belonging and chosen community across a lifetime. So, Karen, we are grateful to have you here as well tonight.

Karen 3:07

It's good to be here. Thanks, Bill.

When Disconnection Hits Home

Bill 3:09

So I want to begin right off the hop with a question that is intentionally personal, and we're just gonna push the edges right from the beginning. When was the last time, and any of you can answer, uh, that you felt disconnected in a way that surprised you?

Ricardo 3:30

I I would say um September of 2023 when um I got separated and my my ex moved out. Um it was the first time in ten years that I'd lived alone. And like if you've ever been to like a show home and you like open the door and the place just bloody sounds empty, that's what happened when he moved out. He took all the stuff and the house just sounded empty. And I would say that um I had to I felt alone for the first time, even though I had a great support system for my family and friends. Um that really only goes so far when you walk into an empty house, right? And you have to like, you know, um relearn how to cook for one and relearn how to like clean up the house for that used to be two or three or whatever, and um um that was a real feeling of loneliness. Um I I didn't know what to do with myself, but I think um through a lot of deep thought and intense therapy, um I had to learn how to fall in love with my own company again. Right?

Laura 4:38

I love that.

Ricardo 4:39

And it was uh uh now I just don't want to talk to anyone. Um but uh now I'm quite happy with a book and a candle, and I'm my dog, and I'm happier than a clam. Um but yeah, you know, it it was just an eerie like feeling just being not being able to talk to someone or like having full-blown conversations with your dog. And um yeah, to fall in love with my own company again was the biggest challenge for me. And so I I empathize with a lot of people that are going through separations and divorces because um it's not only just like the legal and political and emotional side of it, it's learning how to live on your own again and rebuilding your your internal social structure to yourself, right? That foundation, right?

Bill 5:21

Yeah, yeah.

Karen 5:22

Yeah, I would I would say a very similar experience for me, Ricardo, because I I it's not so much that it was the last time I felt that, but the the really significant time was kind of sitting in I was sitting in my basement um watching TV and realized that I hadn't talked to my spouse in hours. And not just that kind of companionable silence piece that you know couples have, but sitting there and realizing that we had not spoken. And in fact, there was clear physical distance between us in the terms of uh he was working in his office, I had come home from a tough day at work, and I was alone in my house by myself, even though there was another human being in the room or in the space, and realizing that if this was gonna be my future, I would rather be alone than lonely because I actually think there's a difference between being alone uh and being a lonely person. And I was less lonely living by myself when I learned to re-love myself and and engage in the world as me rather than one half of an unhappy couple, then sitting in uh and kind of projecting this image of uh this perfect couple, because of course I'm I was in pastoral ministry at the time, and ministers are not allowed to be lonely or have difficult marriages. Uh, they have to be perfect. And so when I had that realization, I was kind of sitting there and I I went to the doc, I was actually seeing the doctor the next day, and I went to see the doctor, and I burst into tears in my doctor's office. And she's like, What's wrong? And I said, I think my marriage is ending, but everybody thinks I'm perfect because ministers have to have perfect marriages. And she told me this fabulous story about how her and her husband, when they were in a small town, uh a small town doctor's, had been voted the perfect couple for Valentine's Day, as they were literally having coupling counseling about separating. And I went, okay, I'm not alone anymore. And and that for me was a massive turning point of moving away from that concept of being lonely into being alone. But I think for me, it was realizing that you can actually be very disconnected from relationships and be sitting in the same room as someone.

Laura 7:59

I've had the very same experience. I would say some of my loneliest times were when I was actually in a relationship with someone. And it was like this, I don't think this is how this is supposed

Lonely At The Top

Laura 8:07

to be. And I think for me, like the kind of what first came to my mind when you asked this question was just I spent most of my career working in the nonprofit sector. And um, I was actually just chatting with my sister about this earlier today on how, you know, you you work in the nonprofit sector, and there's a lot of people, like I worked at this amazing youth development organization that uses bicycles to help young people build life, leadership, and employment skills. And I did that for 15 years, and you have a lot of people come up to you and be like, oh, your life must be so meaningful. Like there must be just magic raining down every single day, and it's just wonderful. And I'm like, no, it's hard. And and especially when, like, so I was uh there were I like to joke that I was the longest serving intern because I was there for 15 years. I was only supposed to be there for three months, and uh eventually I was like eight uh executive director or eight and a half, and you know, it's it's a really lonely position and it's a really lonely work to be doing because there is sort of this expectation that you kind of have it all together and you have all your ducks in a row, and everybody's really envious that you get to do this really fulfilling, purposeful work. And I imagine it's like that in ministry too, where everybody's just like, man, you get to just like be the cheerleader and spread, you know, spread the good news and and all the things. And it's not always like that. And it can be very lonely and it can be very um, yeah, you're just kind of in your head a little bit about it. And until you find, you know, until you find folks that go, oh yeah, me too, or oh, my board is challenging, or oh, I'm having a really hard time finding funding. And but it's not, those are the kinds of things that as an executive director, when you're going out to talk to funders, you're supposed to have it all together because you want people to invest money in what you do. And so there's definitely been a lot of lonely times in that, um, in that work. And I think, you know, it is it is work where you're also, in my case, youth development organization. I was surrounded by people all the time, whether it was my board, my team, you know, 400 teenagers plus a year. Um, there's a lot of people around, but it there was times where I just there wasn't, I didn't feel like there was anybody I could actually connect with or like would intimately understand the pressures of the job and um the expectations and the personal expectations too, because there's certainly that piece of it that you're also managing. But yeah, I think you, you know, you can you can be in a room full of folks and you can still have loneliness. But I think for me, I would rather be alone than lonely.

Pandemic Isolation And Asking For Help

Bill 10:31

Yeah, I uh I remember like picking picking up on what you're saying, Laura. I remember the the last time that I I acutely remember was during the pandemic. Um and uh and it reached kind of a point uh where a number of different kind of major cataclysms in my personal and professional life had all kind of intersected in a perfect storm of misery. Um and uh and it wasn't even that I was just surrounded by people, I was surrounded by well-meaning, caring, wanted to support, wanted to help out, wanted to wanted to be involved, checking in, you know, all that kind of stuff, people, and it was still like a complete like wasteland of ability to connect, right? Because um like I I remember like we I had a I had a person who had just died from uh from the the Delta strain of of COVID, and uh there was a whole piece around that. Um I was just very angry. Uh there was a major project that had failed. There's all kinds of things that had happened, and I was I was walking uh walking wooed and completely unplugged from everything. Uh and and there was a whole community of people around me that were really concerned um and and really supportive and like tell us what you need and we'll do it. And I was like, I don't even know what I need, right? Um and uh and feeling just really um like like there like there wasn't even anyone to talk to. Uh I like I remember I remember the after the first day that I went to counseling finally, um, after sitting three weeks in my office, uh, right above this room, actually, in my office, and uh uh three weeks straight that I logged onto a website and started to punch in my information to go for counseling and then deleted it all and like no, I can't do that, right? And then, you know, punch in again and then delete it all, no, I can't do that. And for three weeks I had wrestled with this, and then uh I finally went to my first counseling session, and that night, um uh like and and the session was fine. That night I went home and uh my blood pressure went through the roof uh to the point that uh the the ambulance was called. There was kind of this whole medical, I'm sharing a lot with parishioners right now. Um and uh and and they're they're testing me right in the in like in my living room, and my kids are terrified, and everybody's like, like, good lord, what's happening? And uh I get into the ambulance because I said, you know what, you're probably fine, but we should probably take you to the hospital and just get you checked out. So off to the hospital I go, and uh, but we're sitting in the ambulance right outside, and I start talking to this poor EMT that I'm pretty sure thought this was supposed to be like an easy phone or an easy call. Um, and uh I just start bawling my eyes out in the back of the ambulance and like I'm going to counseling, is that why my heart rate or my blood pressure is so high? And he's he's like, um I'm I'm sure actually that the opposite is probably true, right? That if you would continue to go to counseling, your blood pressure might drop over time, right? And and uh and he's like trying to destigmatize every um every assumption, every judgment I have about myself for being lonely and and terrified right there in the back of this van, right? And uh, and I just remember coming home from the hospital going, I finally feel like I talked to somebody for the first time, right? Um and uh and that that a connection had been made. And I couldn't even tell you the name of the guy, but if you're listening, EMT guy, um yeah. Uh it it was uh it was a pivotal moment for me to to become aware of just just how alone I actually felt in the moment and how lonely I felt in the moment.

What People Are Hungry For

Bill 13:53

Um so loneliness, we've we've kind of keyed into um this idea that uh loneliness can take on different forms. Um, and uh that the the assumption that loneliness means sitting in a room alone may not actually be the case, right? So, Laura, I want to actually throw it to you uh because uh Social Sector Club, some of the work that you're doing, well, the work you've always done, but some of the work that you are uh kind of intentionally doing right now is trying to build uh spaces where people can feel connected and supported in the the not-for-profit sector. Um uh when we were talking one time, you said like this really is kind of the work of how do you actually help and support the people who help and support, right? Um so based on that work and some of the work you're doing and the conversations that you're having, what do you think people are actually hungry for right now when we talk about loneliness?

Laura 14:38

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think people are really hungry for in-person connection. And I think there was a long time where we couldn't do that. And I think it's taken us a long time to get back to being comfortable in space with each other, and that through that whole process, we've lost a lot of those skills. Like I think there's a lot of like we're all kind of feeling awkward, we don't really know. We've, you know, and I I've been reading this great book actually by the um the former Surgeon General of the U of the US who wrote a book about connection and loneliness and how it actually impacts our like physical health. I have a copy here for the folks inside, but it's called Together. I'm only part way through it, but it's really, it's really powerful. And just like how that, how this connection and and loneliness, you know, like really impacts not just like our mental health, but our physical health. And I think people are really looking for in-person experiences. I think it's sometimes tricky because um I heard a really good quote and I unfortunately can't remember who said it, but it was something like uh we all want a village, but nobody wants to be a villager. And I think that that's part of people needing to like they they want these things that I think people are really hungry for and grasping for connection and in-person relationship and peace people to see them like physically and also, you know, uh proverbially. But I think they um, you know, it's it's it's tricky to it's tricky because we we our skills are rusty. We're trying to figure out, you know, what that looks like for us. I think for the younger generation, having looked, you know, worked with young people for a really long time, they they're really struggling because they also grow up in a very techno like technology-based world where there's kind of this fake connection. You think you're connected to a lot of people and you're really actually not. And so I'm finding that people really are excited to come out to in-person events, gatherings like this, um, you know, and a chance to just be in space with other people. Um, and and it's such an honor to be able to hold that space for people in the nonprofit sector. And so I've been doing that for now almost three years uh through the social sector club. And so it's a casual gathering once a month. We just had one uh earlier this week. And we gather people, um, I say it's for people who work in the nonprofit sector and those who love them. And um it's a chance for people to just come and have, you know, have food together, have a drink together, be in space together. People can come and stay as they as long as they want. And there's no like formal program or agenda because I think that it's important that we also like it's important that we get together and learn together with things and and participate in, you know, things like church and and different presentations. But I think it's also that casual time is really underrated. And I think people are really trying to figure out how to spend and how to create casual time with each other where we're actually just in space getting to know each other as humans and getting to know each other rather than being talked, you know, uh watching something or a presentation collectively. It's a different, it's a different kind of experience. And so we have, you know, folks coming out. Um, we sell it almost every month of the event. And I think people are just, we we put together last year a bowling tournament uh for the first time. So we're doing that again this year, um, which is really fun. And people are like clamoring for these kinds of activities. And I'm like, okay, I'm happy to put stuff together, and it's been really fun, and it's been really, I think, healing for me in my journey as an executive director, and the loneliness of that is to be able to hold space for other people. And um, yeah, it's been it's been such an honor to have all those folks come out and do that, do that with me, and and and also the ripple effect of that. So there's other groups that are now gathering certain, you know, certain segments of the nonprofit sector are now having kind of their own little gatherings and or they're you know, they've meet people there, and there's a group of them that met at the social sector club event, and now they go donate blood together. That's like their thing that they do to go hang out. And so there's these really cool ripples that are happening from just creating a space for people to be together and for them giving them the air to talk with you with one another.

Bill 18:35

What do you think, Ricardo? What is how does does that resonate?

Relearning Social Life After COVID

Ricardo 18:39

It does. I think I think there was a a time when we had to relearn how to interact with each other after the pandemic um in uh in a certain way. And I I I like the that that quote actually is really cool. We all want to be in a village, but no one wants to be a villager. Yeah, right. But everyone has their limitations, and and you know, we try our best to help those that are in need um and help those that are lonely. Um I think of even like um my aunts and uncles who are in in long-term care or just living right now, and come and visit me. They all say, come and visit all the friends you want. You have the best of intentions of going to see them, but like you can really only do it like once or twice a month, which which means the world to them, right? And and so when it comes to loneliness, it's like it's it affects every single sort of age crap in society, right? Um, kids are are getting together now and learning to to become friends and play with each other and go out and do things. But uh, you know, I I am very intrigued right now about the whole um social media bands that are taking place in different places around the world, right? And how um I mean I think it's happening in Manitoba, he's talking about it, right? And we're teaching kids how to socially interact and to reunite that social part and that creative part of their brains. And for me in my age group, it's it's it's interesting when we talk about loneliness in our in our in our ways, um, especially when it comes to like the three of us on this side of the table who are no longer in relationships. Um how much we rely, like even in our in our sectors, like whether it's social justice or community work and so and not-for-profit and ministry, like how much we rely on our spouses and each other to get through our work. And I can remember how scary it was for me to figure out how I would juggle, like just taking care of my dog without my ex there at the house to do for me or with me. And I just envisioned myself like being too late to come home from work and it's like dead next to the empty dog dish, right? Like oh man. This is like the things that I'm envisioning in my head.

Karen 20:50

I have a good kennel, I can recommend a card of them.

Ricardo 20:53

Meanwhile, I come home and the dog's perfectly fine, right? She's just fine, she's just happy, right?

Laura 20:57

But those it's still zicks are logistics, right? Like there's all you structure your life differently. And there's not necessarily like I'm I'm a single person who lives by themselves and and has supported myself. And there's times when I, you know, I sit on my couch and be like, man, it'd be so nice to have someone to take care of me or like pay bills so that I don't have to one month, you know. That that would be cool.

Ricardo 21:20

I think of a lot like during the pandemic when um everything was shut down, what people in assisted living and long-term care had to go through because they only talked with the people within their within their the unit, the building. And sometimes if outbreak came, they were stuck in their rooms for God knows how long, right? And I can remember visiting my aunt and she just had to like yell at us. She was thankfully on the ground floor, and she just had talked to us through the screen, right? And we went and talked to my parents, my parents aren't in our home, but I you know, I in my job was helping workers in the most highly contagious areas of of the society, the meatpacking plants and the warehousing and the growth. So I didn't want to infect my parents, so I sat on the balcony and they sat in the kitchen through the screen door, and mom was just like opening it up and handing me food. Because she can't not feed you, right? That's the way it is. Right? But I think of like how it how damaging that was for somebody's psyche to have a family unit around them, and then all of a sudden just be told, sorry, you can't we can't come over, we can't talk to you. So I mean, pandemic aside, we live in a world now where um it's harder for us to um find time to to do things. People are either working more jobs because they have to keep up with the way cost of living is going right now, or they're just running around with all the different activities that have exploded again. Like I see all the signs around the neighborhood for putting your kids into after-school programs or summer programs and summer camps, like start signing up now, right? And I think of like this, it's just non-stop for parents. Like, I'm so happy I don't have children sometimes. But like it's just not just for all the activities they have to go through on top of school bills and everything is out of me. Right? That's what resonates with me is like how you know it's just the the world around us has changed, and like we're no longer in a pandemic per se, and rules and and and and the the economics of the world has changed, but loneliness it's almost like a curse that that feeds through everything in that way, shape, or form. It finds a way to penetrate a different part of society that that we um that we exist, coexist in, and we we have to find ways to like what you're doing is fantastic.

Laura 23:32

Thank you. Thank you.

Ricardo 23:33

Because not for profit and social justice work and ministry is very often like Bill was just telling us this morning, how you woke up at 8 30 and all of a sudden I do a funeral at 10, right? It's not something you can control, right?

Laura 23:43

Yeah, and I think that helps.

Bill 23:44

You can say no to things sometimes.

Laura 23:46

Not that I'm going to be the hypocrite that says we should uh when I never do, but uh but I but I don't think we think of the helpers as needing help, you know, and we don't center that in enough. And and and to be fair, we're also a little bit of martyrs as well.

Bill 24:00

Well, and there's there's always a there's a tiny messiah complex. There's a messiah complex.

Clergy Loneliness And Impossible Expectations

Bill 24:04

Yeah.

Karen 24:04

I mean, I think we we've we just did a massive survey of our our clergy last year. Um and the the number one concern of clergy is is loneliness. They feel isolated and alone in their work. And part of it is that we can we've constructed um a relationship requirement for clergy that they're not supposed to really have friends in their congregation.

Bill 24:34

Yep.

Karen 24:35

Um they're supposed to like they're supposed to find their friends elsewhere. But by the way, you better be on call 24-7 to deal with stuff that comes along like the 8:30 call for a funeral at 10 and cancel your personal plans for that, because that's the expectation that we lay upon them, uh, because they're called by God to serve the people of God and and not uh really take uh time for themselves. And and and my role uh as the regional minister, one of the internal struggles I'm having is this even this whole concept of what we call self-care. Like it's actually in their call papers. Like when they're given their contracts, we call them call papers. When they're given their call papers, there is a piece that says, and you will look after yourself. And here's like you have to dedicate a certain amount of your week to self-care. And I said, That's kind of like telling the physician to heal themselves.

Bill 25:33

Does it actually say that?

Karen 25:34

It does in your call papers, Bill. Check back. Check that. I'll have a look at it.

Bill 25:41

I'm gonna write myself a note. Right.

Karen 25:44

Congregants of Bill who's attending and listening, he is supposed to do self-care. But I actually think even the phrasing of that actually adds into the loneliness epidemic. Because what we're actually saying is we know you have a really stressful job. We know you have a job that's isolating. Oh, and it's your responsibility to combat the loneliness.

Bill 26:04

Yep, yeah, yep, yeah.

Laura 26:05

And also, you have to do this too. And by the way, you live in a small town, so you're not allowed to all the people are your people. Yeah, all the people.

Karen 26:12

Like I my first ministry call was to a small town of 1800 people, right? I had a I had a preteen kid, you know, this is the nightmare moment, right? And we actually like I could not do anything in that town without people commenting on everything my family did. When we moved into the when we moved into our house, we I remember we were sitting one Sunday afternoon uh after lunch, after church, we come home from church, had lunch, we're sitting there, and my kid is sitting looking out the window. She goes, Mom, there is a car stopping at the bottom of our drive. And I'm like, where are the that's weird because we live on the end of a street. We're on a dead end street. And we had become part of the Sunday afternoon, like let's let's go out for a drive kind of thing.

Bill 27:09

But the map of the stars in a room. We were the map of the map of the stars.

Karen 27:16

We were a star on the map. But we did not know these people, they were not our friends, we did not connect with them, and and I had no friends in town. Like there's 1800 people, and I had no friends because I could not have that relationship. And we build that into our system and ministry.

Bill 27:37

Yeah, yeah.

Karen 27:38

And and it bothers me that we do that, and and we put the responsibility of the self-care onto the minister, you know, here, be everything to every person. Oh, and by the way, also look after yourself in in uh you know, in really inappropriate ways. And I think that that builds, and so when we got that survey back, you know, the pastor relations, my my colleagues across the country, there's like 16 of us, kind of went, well, that's not a surprise that loneliness is the biggest personal concern for ministry staff.

Ricardo 28:12

It's also like you know, everything you've said is the you you don't have the uh allowance to turn it off, right? Yeah, like for example, even if I go to like a bar and I'm drinking with my friends and a member shows up, like a union member shows up, and I've had a lot of tequila at this point, and they're like, hi Ricardo, our contract talks working well. And I'm like, oh.

Bill 28:33

What contract?

Karen 28:34

What contract?

Ricardo 28:35

Oh, how can I got to the point now where if I go out for a night in the town for like a birthday or whatever, and I know I'm drinking, I still carry my business cards on me. Because they'll inevitably ask me a question about their contract that I'm in no state to be answering right now.

Bill 28:50

I mean, that's the that's the perpetual curse that I have as well. I can remember when the when the Calgary Flames made like the legitimate Stanley Cup run, we had the like the Red Mile, right? When 17th Ad became the real Red Mile. Um, and I was in youth ministry at the time, and a group of us went down and we watched game six. Um, and we like we drank a lot, and then we went out and we walked the mile and bumped into all of the youth group that had come down together with their parents to kind of check out the red mile, and we were all like inappropriately, like not church appropriate at all. Um, and uh and it was like it was horrifying. Um, it happened again on Friday. I went to Beer Fest here at like Shout Out Beer Fest. It was a good time. Um, and my phone rang four times with what I knew was gonna be pastoral care calls. Um, and me just kind of going like I'll check the voicemail and determine whether it's uh like gotta say sorry to my group of friends and go home and sober up on the train ride home. Um, or can it wait until tomorrow morning? Because like again, it was just this horrifying like I you don't get to turn it off.

Ricardo 29:56

You don't get to And that's that's loneliness creating in itself. Exactly. Because for me, I feel like I have no commonality in terms of a work-life balance that the rest of my friends and family have. Some of my friends work in hospitals, which are crazy hours all over the place, but they always tell me I punch in, I punch out, I go home, right? Like I'm not going home and changing the dressings on the wounds of people on the street, like as a as an off-duty nurse, right? But uh, and or even the people who work regular office hours, they go into work, they do their job, they go home, and they talk about like, oh, I went for yoga, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I literally was, I know, and I play in the symphony, and I got calls during intermission of a concert, and I was like, Do I answer this? Like, how long will it take? You know, you had that kind of thing. And that's that creates a lonely existence in and of itself because your friends and family don't understand why you can't just flip your phone over and not look at it anymore, right? And um those kind of those kind of jobs um where where they're salaried and and they're just 24-7 sort of whenever.

Karen 30:54

Um and there's and there's and it's not even sometimes the expectation of our beautiful congregants that we serve, it's the expectation of people who have never stepped inside our buildings. Those are the most fun. I mean, I remember being criticized for going to a yoga class because it was seen as pagan.

Bill 31:12

Yeah. Yeah,

Always On And Never Off

Bill 31:13

fair. But I mean, I will I will also say that um rightly or wrongly, um I th I think some of it also is is include like I think it's an expectation, depending on how you were trained in seminary, that you carry yourself as well, right? Um like I'm I I am not gonna download all of the expectation onto the people that we serve because I can I can remember sitting in classes in seminary where there was always a conversation about like there is a difference between uh vocation and profession, right? And vocation means it is your identity, yeah, you are called to this. Uh, this is who you are, and it's not something that you ever stop being, right? Which becomes this expression of uh you are always the minister, um, whether you are in the freezer aisle at Safeway or whether you are um at Beerfest. You know, at Beer Fest or whatever, right? Um and uh and and and like there's something just as damaging that, but like it is an expectation that was actually I mean it's been handed down through the tradition as well in ministry, right?

Karen 32:14

I mean I remember being told when I when I was in um my in my years in seminary, being told that once I was ordained, I was ordained for life. Yep. And it's like, so when I retire, that means and they're like, oh no, ordained for life.

Bill 32:31

It is a legitimate life sentence.

Karen 32:32

It is a life sentence. Yeah, and which then actually to to kind of in that age gap thing, we struggle with retirees being really lonely and disconnected because we take them away from congregations, take them away from congregational life, and say, oh, but by the way, you're still ordained for life, but you cannot be in that relationship that we've spent all this time preparing you for and and molding you into.

Bill 32:58

Yeah.

Karen 32:59

So we kind of cut them off, cut them loose, and they wander around kind of disconnected from the very community that is supposed to support and care for them.

Bill 33:09

Free-range ministers that have been put out to pastor.

Karen 33:11

Yeah, and not done well.

Bill 33:13

Yeah.

When Your Job Is Your Identity

Laura 33:14

I would say it's similar in the nonprofit sector. Like I very much, you know, I think for uh having worked at the same organization for 15 plus years, for a couple years I've been wrestling with like, when is it time? When do you know? And there's, you know, you kind of go through your head and you're like, okay, like when do I feel like I've won nonprofit? Like, when do I, you know, get the trophy and I feel like I've won the thing? You're like, I've leveled up, I've did the thing, I solved it. And uh, first of all, that doesn't happen. That's not a thing. Um but you know, like you, there's certain milestones that you cross. But then more and more I just felt like it was time for me, it was time for the organization. And I love Two Wheel of View very, very much and will always be a passionate advocate. But it felt like it was time for us to do to be different things. And as I was working through that for probably a process of two to three years, really, of thinking about like, who am I? Who am I without this organization? And it had become so intrinsic to my identity that I was having like panic attacks, even just kind of like, I feel like there's a feeling like I should leave, but also like absolute fear and dread. And like, who am I to community? Who am I to the world? Who am I to myself if I don't, if I'm not the bike girl?

Bill 34:26

Yeah, but without this, who am I?

Laura 34:28

Who am I? What do what do I do? What do I know how to do? And I think especially in the executive director role, because you're kind of you're an ecosystem manager, much like ministry, you're you know, you're managing ecosystems, you're not necessarily like checking a lot of boxes every day, which is why I would also like clean the bathroom at Two Bill View from time to time, because I just needed to have something to check on. You could say you were like something I felt like I accomplished in a day. But I think, you know, who who am I? Who is this person? And um that for me was terrifying for a long time and and and super isolating because I didn't feel like I could necessarily talk to my board about it. I didn't feel I definitely couldn't talk to my team about it. I could, you know, I talked to my hairdresser a lot about it. Um, but uh you know, I was trying to to figure out when you're in this job where it's so much a part of your identity, how do you, how do you, you know, change that? Because that's a really lonely journey to travel when you decide that it's time for the two, you know, whether it's in relationship or, you know, a work relationship when it has been your whole life. Like, you know, up until very recently, I was waking up at 3 a.m., you know, worried about are we gonna make payroll? Are like how many bicycles in a warehouse is too many bicycles? Uh, all sorts of like panic nightmares and dreams about, you know, what would that look like? And also just like, what would that do to my team to share the fact that I'm I want to move on? And what does that what does that look like? And and and disconnecting from people that I really care about and spent more time with than my family in lots of ways. And so it's been it's been an interesting journey. I'm now almost a hundred days away from Two Wheel View. It'll be a hundred days on Sunday. And um, not that I'm like counting down the days, but one of the things that I told myself is I wanted to spend more time being active because obviously when you're you know you're doing a lot of computer work and pushing emails through the internet, you sit around a lot. And and so I told myself I wanted to do more walking. So I've been walking seven kilometers a day since I left Two Wheel View. So that's how come I know that a hundred days a hundred days is on uh is on Mother's Day.

Ricardo 36:27

So there was an article that I had read a long time ago, not even a long time ago, a couple years ago, talked about social justice work and not-for-profit work and whatever, and like how burnout was like in the 80% prevalency in a lot of areas, and that sometimes people will take leave of absences from that work, but they say half of them never go back.

Bill 36:44

Yep.

Ricardo 36:44

Like not only do they not go back to that job, but they leave not-for-profit, social justice work altogether and go into the corporate world or start a business or do something completely out of that sphere because it's so it's so draining. And um it's also like the employees of not-for-profits as well, who are just on a on a on an hourly salary or even anything like that, like the mentality that they have to sacri the self-sacrifice they have to give, oh, it's for the clients.

Laura 37:11

Yeah, if you're not bleeding for the cause, you're not doing it right for that, yeah.

Ricardo 37:14

Even like the supposed not-for-profit, like long-term care homes, like God forbid they ask for a raise, and like, oh, but what about the residents? Okay, cool. Like, you know, I'm doing a job, right? And so um it is interesting to see that those statistics, right?

Laura 37:28

Nonprofit people shouldn't have to access the same services of the people that they're trying to support. And that's that's happening more and more. There's an organization out of uh Ottawa called Future of Good, and they do research on uh social sector and nonprofit well-being. Super interesting stuff. And so they're they're gonna be tracking that long term. They just released the report, I think, two years ago now, um, or maybe last year. But they uh but yeah, it's not good. And we like we need people doing this work, like all of this work. These are the people that are holding things together. And I think um, you know, it's too important to fail. And but we really need to allow and um we need to allow people to be compensated properly in nonprofit work and not have this like, oh, we you know, we want to make sure there's only a certain small percentage of overhead, and we're really proud that our overhead is small. Like, no, we invest in good people to solve complex problems. And we need to make sure that they're compensated well and that they they get the time they need to be as strong as they can uh to do the job. I had to take, like, I took seven weeks off in 2022 uh for burnout, and and the social sector club was an outcome of my return because I knew that I couldn't, I didn't want, I was terrified to go back to that isolation burnout place. Um, and so that that's been a cool outcome of that. But, you know, we we have to do better by the folks that are the helpers and not just, you know, like we need to do better by, you know, fire police, nursing, all of those folks too. But there's kind of this level of I I think community hero that we don't we don't raise up enough, we don't draw enough attention to. And that's partly the fault of the sector. I mean, like some of the things we just talked about, but I think it's also, you know, it's it's also um we need to do better by them and and recognize and support those heroes that are really um taking on a lot. And um yeah, like if you imagine a world without that and all the people, and they say 41%-ish of Canadians don't think that they've engaged with a nonprofit uh in the last year, which is untrue. 100%. And there's lots of organizations you engage with all the time, they're also nonprofits. So, you know, it's it's we need to do better by those folks and the help the helpers.

Ricardo 39:41

This is a dark one.

Karen 39:45

Well, I mean But I'm thinking about it in the Terms Lab.

Third Spaces And The Cost Of Gathering

Karen 39:49

Um the like where do we allow people to gather, to reconnect, right? Um, I was born and raised in the UK, and and third space is really big there. Like Europe, like you know, Europe just has a lot of third space.

Bill 40:05

You're gonna need to explain what third space is and not assume that yeah.

Karen 40:08

It's a third space is somewhere that is not your home, that is not your work, but is a place, a place for people to gather.

Bill 40:16

The pub.

Karen 40:17

The pub. In good British tradition. You can just say the pub.

Bill 40:21

We know what the pub means. It's university.

Laura 40:23

Libraries are good third spaces.

Karen 40:25

It is, it's it's public space that has no agenda attached to it. So it's uh the pub, the park, barbershops, the yeah, the barbershop, the the street seating that is outside cafes, uh, that doesn't require you to actually drink something or own. So there's like public seating in pedestrianized areas in a downtown core. Um those are that's what we call third space.

Bill 40:55

Yeah.

Karen 40:55

And it is a place for people just simply to gather. And I I actually when we moved here, that was probably one of the biggest cultural shops we had because there was no not significant third space for us when we moved here and we didn't know what people did with themselves on Sunday afternoons. Like Sunday afternoon to us was uh we lived in a small fishing town um on the north coast of Scotland, northeast coast of Scotland, just south of Aberdeen. And in the summer, when the weather had changed to the beautiful sunshine we've been getting lately, we would go down with our daughter to the harbor, and the kids would all play on the beach, and the parents would all sit on the harbor ball wall with a beer. And we'd sit for hours, just sit there, talking to your neighbors, getting to know, getting to know, you know, the grocer, you know, the guy who owned the grocery store without actually having to go into his store, you know, getting to know the person, getting to know your kid's teacher without it actually being about your kid and what they were learning in their classroom. It was about just being community together. And and I think you know, I think the COVID uh has added to that in that any third space we had prior to COVID has been really decimated. Uh often because it's considered financially um excessive to have for to publicly fund that space. Uh but I was just thinking about it, I I stopped at a coffee shop on my way here and um I was looking at the sign and it said parking limited to one hour. And I remember when that particular brand of coffee shop came along, the whole point of it was to be third space. We could bring our computers, we could sit and chat to our friends, and we could buy one coffee, and that would be our entrance fee to that third space. And that has gone. Like, how often have you gone into, especially in a downtown core, into a coffee shop or or or a fast food place, and it says, you know, seating limited to 20 minutes. Right? We're not encouraged to gather in places where we can get to know our neighbors. We are we're encouraged to isolate at home. We're encouraged to, uh if we do go out, it's to somewhere where we're only there to generate money into the system. Right? We're only there to support a system that doesn't support us in many ways. And so we're we're not being encouraged into that space where we can just hang out and go bowling. Yeah. Right. Or hang out and just have a have a coffee or a beer with friends, and no one's watching the clock on us. Like I remember when we when we moved here and and the first time we kind of went out for dinner, and when you go to when you go out for dinner in Europe, they don't talk the waiters and wait, the the staff don't talk to you. They come, they take your order, and they walk away. And you can sit there all night. And until Until you're ready for your check or you want something, they will leave you alone. And and it's beautiful because you just sit there and you talk with your family. And it's an experience, and it's about the food and it's about the company. And I remember the first time we went out for dinner, and there was just this constant, do you need anything? Do you need anything? And it was like, yes, space. Go away. You know, because even when we do have what we might consider third space, it is being driven by the capitalist system to generate income. It's not about bringing community together. And we and I think that's that has gotten worse since COVID.

Laura 44:42

And I would add on to that

Social Media And The Risk Of Being Seen

Laura 44:44

too. Like I was reading something the other day where it talked about something about nobody goes dancing anymore. And I think that, you know, dances used to be a place where people connected. That's often where people met their spouse. Like that used to be a big social thing. But that young people aren't dancing because every try. Or yeah, well, unless they're on TikTok, I guess. Unless they're on TikTok. They're dancing for TikTok. But yeah, they try. But I think it's partly because, you know, we also, when they show up in these third spaces, there's such a like social risk of them being recorded. And there's not kind of that ability to be like, yep, I'm a terrible dancer. I'm gonna dance here. And you know, the people are gonna talk. And then when something else more important comes along, they're gonna talk about that instead. Um, but there's not, you know, it's not recorded for all posterity for the rest of your life, kind of thing. And so there's, I think there's a lot, especially with our young people, and why they're feeling very disconnected is because there's such a social risk to having, you know, a cell phone. Everybody with a cell phone can record them doing something silly, can record them whatever, and that lives on forever. Um, and so they're just not, they're not willing to put themselves, rightfully so, into social situations where there might be something that somebody can bully them about. And that's really that's really sad and hard. And and you know, I I think it's it'll be interesting to see what some of these like social media bands and different things around young people's use of.

Bill 46:06

Yeah, or even getting a place where you can create an event where you say, like, you're checking your phones at the door, right? And we'll we'll take the responsibility for making sure that you get your phone back at the end of the night, but it's staying here, right? And there's no um and and I like I see some of that direction kind of starting now as well, right? Like we need to find a way to again, like I don't want to I will never vilify social media in the current day entirely because throughout history, young people especially have always made all technology social, right? Um it's uh uh it it's always I mean, we we don't complain about you know telephones that were attached to the wall. Um, but I'm sure my parents did uh in in you know the generation that I was a kid, uh when you couldn't get a phone call from anyone because Bill was hogging the line and it was before call waiting, right? So um so there's always that reality that uh technology, technology is always made social, right? But there is something about the the prevalence of having it right at hand, right? Um that is that is new. Um you don't have to break into a telegraph station to send a message anymore. Um it's on the record in Alberta, you can actually check and see. There are stories of kids breaking into telegraph stations in different towns just so that they can message each other. Um because again, they take the technology and make it into a social thing. It's what we do, right?

Laura 47:23

So um I think it's a wonderful place to find community and find, but I think it's the you know, not you know, kind of that being the only source of that.

Bill 47:32

It's the illusion of connectivity, right? Yeah, that's the thing. Like the like the the thing that I always try to remind uh my kids is you are sitting here at this table with us and you are not engaged with us. You think you're engaged with this group of people that are all over the city, but you're not actually engaged with them either. Right? Um like you have this dual illusion of being present in two places at once and you're actually present in neither. Yeah. Um and and it's such a it's such a strange thing to wrap your head around, right? So like we I think we real, I think it was actually the pandemic. I will never say that anything good came out of the pandemic. It was a terrible time for everybody, and none of us walked out unscarred, honestly. But um, it was the pandemic, I think, where people you saw for a moment, a brief moment in time, that people realized we were actually better together in the physical, tangible sense of the word, right? Where we started finding creative ways to talk through the screen if that was the closest we could get, um, because the video screen wasn't going to be enough. And we just knew that. Um, but where also the the heroes that were undervalued or unrecognized were suddenly, for a very brief moment in time, um, people were out on their porches every night banging their pots making their noise, remembering the like remembering that it was the frontline workers, it was uh the people that didn't get to be isolated and that had to be put at risk. Like for a brief moment, right? Like I I don't I'm not gonna romanticize it. I'm actually more um disappointed in um how quickly you know we we forgot it the minute that you know we were given permission to, right? Um but for a brief moment, the pandemic kind of reminded us all that like the proximity matters, the face-to-face matters, the being able to read body language and emotion and tone and and all of that matters, um the connectivity matters, and and that yeah, there are a whole kind of undergirding group of people uh that are not the you know five percenters um that are really what hold the fabric of our our well-being together. And uh and that they were they were struggling then, and for the first time in my memorable lifetime, people were worried about it, right? Um and so somehow we lost that momentum. Um I want to I want to expand the conversation a bit because everything we've been talking about here has been um has been really good. I just I just think we could say that everything we've talked about here expands beyond um even just sort of the idea of not-for-profit or or church leadership or whatever, too, because I know like in the in the grief counseling and the grief work that I do, um, this idea of like who am I if I'm not you know the the executive director of this uh this uh uh social enterprise or um if I'm not the the minister serving this community or whatever is the same question that we ask um or that people ask when uh when their spouse dies after 75 years of marriage, right? And suddenly like no more, like you're no longer, you know, Karen's spouse. Um you're you're and and you've got to kind of figure out like who am I now, right? This rewriting your identity, reshaping your understanding of who you are and your purpose, right? Like really, um, and your your community and your network and um you know the things that you used to go out and do as a couple with other couples, and then you feel the kind of the reality that suddenly like couples are having trouble wrapping their head around like how do we still get you to come and be a part of that? And all of these things are still like they're identity pieces that happen um beyond just you know corporate or not-for-profit or whatever, right?

A Book About Losing Touch

Bill 51:15

Now you talked a lot about um the space, right? Creating the social sector club space. Yeah. Um I read a book by Billy Blanks, um, fantastic book called We Need to Hang Out. Um that's the the tie fighting guy, Billy Blanks? No. Okay. No, no, no, not not Taibo, Billy Blanks. No, Billy Blanks. I didn't know he was an author.

Ricardo 51:33

Okay.

Bill 51:34

Sorry, because it's not Billy Blanks. I said it wrong, it's Billy Baker. I need to get that right.

Karen 51:38

Okay, that's better.

Bill 51:40

There we go. Billy Baker, that's the name. Billy Baker. Uh We Need to Hang Out. And the whole premise of the book is like he's a journalist, I believe, and uh and he writes a book, it's it's autobiographical, um, about a time when uh he is so consumed by work and so consumed by you know, this idea, again, like waking up at three in the morning worried about like are we gonna make payroll and all that kind of stuff? And and one day he phones uh his friend who was best man at his wedding uh and says, like, hey, you know, we we should get together and have a beer or something. And his friend says, like, I've lived in Austria for the last two years. Um Right. And uh and he goes, like, how did I get so disconnected from everything in my life uh that I didn't even know that my best friend had moved to another continent, right? And it's his story of how he then tries to go about uh reconnecting with relationships in his life. Um and there's a whole bunch of lessons that he learns and a whole bunch of research. Again, he's a journalist, he does a lot of research, statistical analysis, that kind of stuff around loneliness. Um but uh it's it's a it's a chapter-by-chapter account of his trials and failures at making space. Um and some of them are very simple, some of them are very complex. Universally, I would say none of them succeed. I don't want to give away the ending of the book, but none of them actually succeed. Um the book does not necessarily end on a bad note, but I wouldn't say it ends on a happy note either. It ends on a uh work in progress note, if that's uh if that's possible. So perhaps what we'll do is we will take an intermission right now, because when I come back, or when we come back, I want to talk about uh third space. Let's talk about how it is that we actually build meaningful space to uh address loneliness uh in our in our society, in our world, in our in our systems, in our places of work, but also in our uh individual human relationships. Let's talk about uh the kind of space that we would want to build and the principles behind that. Sound good?

Laura 53:36

Sounds great.

Bill 53:37

Let's take an intermission and we'll be right back.

What Makes A Third Space Work

Bill 53:55

Okay, so before the break, we spent a lot of time talking about the realities of loneliness and disconnection. Talked about burnout, performance, economic exhaustion, a strange reality of being constantly connected and still feeling emotionally adrift. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, we landed on this uh idea of third space, right? So places between work and home where we can form community, be in community together, be relational with one another, and actually be in proximity with one another. Uh we've talked about coffee shops, there's also community groups, clubs, faith communities, volunteer spaces, gathering places where people are not simply consuming something or producing something, but actually encountering one another as human beings. Does that sound about right?

Karen 54:41

Yep.

Bill 54:42

All right. Uh what struck me from the conversation is that in different ways, each and every single one of you uh is involved in that kind of work of creating these spaces uh in your daily lives, in your work, uh, and in your advocacy as well. So I'm gonna start with Laura, and then we will expand as needed, because Social Sector Club feels like a really intentional response to this very problem. Um, and you talked about the fact that this was in fact part of your personal response to a time off uh returning from burnout, right? So the question uh is what actually makes a space, a third, a third space, feel like a place where people can belong?

Laura 55:20

Oh, good question. Yeah, I'd be curious to know actually what the people that attend social sector club would say to this. Because to me, it's been honestly a pretty big surprise that it's become what it's become, I think, in our community, and that I have people that come up to me and be like, you're the social sector girl. I'm like, great, I'm no longer the bike girl, but hopefully, you know, hopefully I've learned something from this last time around and identity and attaching to what you do kind of for your, for your, for your job. But um, you know, I think it is about, I think what's special about third spaces and and creating space and holding space for other people is really checking in with the ego about it and that you can't control it. I think that that's like you kind of have to let it let it do its thing and sort of see what happens. And, you know, when I I've I've stayed in the sector, uh in the nonprofit sectors for as long as I have because of my connections with other people. And I would say I'm a bit of a like golden retriever in terms of personality. I make friends pretty easily, like hanging out with people. I'm very curious about people. And um, and so it's my relationships with other executive directors and other folks that really has kept me going and kept me like, you know, we have a long some folks, we have a long chat thread about all the weird stuff we've encountered in our careers and doing these things. And and I wanted to be able to provide that for other people. Um, but you can't really, you can't really prescribe it in lots of ways, right? Like you can't, you have to sort of hold the space but allow it to be what the group is gonna make it. And that's something, you know, really checking in with your ego about that. And I think, you know, as humans, we really want to control and we want precise, you know, we want a recipe and we want to be able to say like A plus B equals C, and then you won't be lonely anymore, and then you'll be happy and all the boxes will be checked, and it'll be great. Um, but that's not really how third spaces and community building works. I think you, you know, you put together some um uh, you know, you you put together some some ideas and sort of a vibe, you know, for lack of a better word. Um, and then you have to you have to sort of give it over to the people a little bit to to so that they're co-creating that with you. You know, there's certain, I would say at social sector club, we have, you know, certain um it attracts a certain type of person who is, you know, wanting searching for community. I've had people tell me, you know, almost every every time, like this is, you know, uh this is a networking event I'd like to attend. I am a personally allergic to it, the word networking. It makes me itchy. And it feels very, in lots of contexts, it feels very extractive. And I and it feels very like you're you know, you're a gazelle on the savannah that's being hunted for your phone number and somebody wants to sell you something you don't need. Um and so I think it is about you know, like creating that space and having people come and sort of saying, you know, this is our this is kind of our loose rules of engagement. You're here because you care. And then people who that, you know, don't identify with that or people that don't, you know, sort of link up, they self-select. And that's kind of like the best case scenario is that they go and find another community where they do feel like they have a greater sense of belonging. And then you just continue. And I think it is also about deep care of people. And for me, one of my, I think things that that's helped me in connection and maybe bringing people is remembering stuff about people. The details, like the little details. It's like, oh, how's your running going? How's your son? How's your grandmother? How's your oh, the last time we talked, you were struggling with this? And I think we're we're so we're kind of in our own heads about most conversations and we're trying to plan what we're gonna say next rather than, you know, we're planning our response before we've actually even heard what the other person is saying, you know. And so I think sometimes it's about making sure that you're capturing those little details. And sometimes I have like little notes in my phone being like, oh, so-and-so is going through this. And then I can check in with them in a couple of days, you know, like the next time they're like, Hey, how's that going? And I think people when we pay that kind of attention, people remember that. And that creates a space of people then also if you role model that, then I think other people pick on that too and take take that kind of stance. And I would say that's something that um a lot of the people that come to social sector club have in common.

No Agenda And Real Equality

Karen 59:41

I'm I'm curious about the third space in the terms of it. It's the place, the only agenda in a third space is that there is no agenda. And that we can I think of something you said earlier, Laura, about being seen for who we are. So it doesn't matter whether I'm the CEO of the company or the guy who cleans the bathrooms. Third space is about the fact that in that space we are equals. And then that space we because we're equals because we're first and foremost human beings. Not there to network and get the the phone number of the guy who can or the girl who can get me into the next position that will satisfy my career trajectory. That is not what it is about. It is about the space where I can go in and be seen simply for who I am. Um, a person who exists in this earth, who has a body, who has an experience of the world. And that for me is is really important when it comes to the third space. That there is literally no agenda. The agenda is no agenda. And I was thinking about um in the terms of kind of this loneliness piece. I have a friend who's a mental health nurse uh back in Scotland, and they've been instrumental in creating a third space concept called the Andy Club, which is for men to gather to talk about their mental health issues. And and what they do is they gather in the space where men gather to do other things. So they've connected with like um uh football, well soccer, as y'all call it here. Soccer clubs.

Laura 1:01:31

Y'all call it soccer.

Karen 1:01:34

Um they've connected with uh soccer clubs and other like sports um bodies and and they use their they they meet in their bars when they're closed. So they meet like on a Monday afternoon or something. And because the the territory is familiar and safe. But they're able and so they're able to kind of engage in this c in these conversations about their mental well-being.

Bill 1:02:01

Yeah.

Karen 1:02:02

But I think that that's what third space is about is creating in some uh there's a social agreement that this is a safe split space without us actually writing a contract. And and in that space, we can just be ourselves. We don't have to be on a performance about our work or our family or anything else. We can just be us. So we're not Bill the Minister or Laura the CEO or Ricardo the activist. We are just people turning up as ourselves to just be present to one another. And I think people find that really hard because we are so conditioned to having an agenda, having like, I gotta do this because this is what makes my career better. There's KPIs attached to everything.

Laura 1:02:51

There's KPIs, there's KPIs attached to everything. Exactly.

Ricardo 1:02:54

And I think that that's what's a KPI, like key performance indicator.

Laura 1:02:58

It's like we are gonna achieve this thing in this meeting, and that's and that's that. And I think it's tricky. And I think it's particularly, I mean, I I think that that I love that there's a program like that. I think there's things in Alberta like called man sheds that they do do different things like that because I think it's particularly um, you know, it's not something that men grow up with being able to. Women, you know, have kind of social circles or quilting circles or different things we've had historically over time, and we haven't had those those chances for uh for men to access those kinds of um important spaces for for them to yeah, just be and be in in community with each other. And we we had an awesome on Tuesdays at Two Wheel View, there's this awesome group of retire uh male retirees that come in and uh they're my favorite bunch of folks, and they just like they've most of them didn't know each other before they started volunteering there, and they just come and wrench on bicycles. And what that kind of does is that they're working shoulder to shoulder, their hands are busy, and they can talk about stuff, but you're not necessarily being like, hey, you, you know, like in your eye, you know, looking you in the eye, and and and sort of you're it it lowers and it works for teenagers too, which is why you know bikes and bike mechanics has been such a great modality

Men, Projects, And Vulnerable Conversation

Laura 1:04:05

for for teenagers.

Bill 1:04:05

There is a very tactile thing about uh like like uh like if you're gonna try to get a group of men together to actually talk about something deep and emotional and vulnerable, if you can attach it to a work project, um you're exponentially more likely to have it work out.

Karen 1:04:21

There's a there's a great I just watched uh I was just checking on on my phone there to make sure I got the title right, but there's a great movie uh from the UK that I just watched a few weeks ago called Swimming with Men.

Ricardo 1:04:34

Go on. Ricardo's like, tell me more.

Bill 1:04:41

My reaction of the library is Ricardo, Ricardo is listening. Yeah.

Karen 1:04:45

Ricardo's like, oh research time. So uh so this movie is called Swimming with Men, and it is about a man who is in his midlife part of and he's an accountant, and he is deeply lonely, like we talked about in the first half. Yeah, inner married, but deeply lonely. And um, his stress reliever is that he swims every day, like he goes to the local pool, and when he's at the pool one time, he discovers that there is a group of men there who are learning how to do synchronized swimming. And he joins the group, and it's actually based out of um a documentary from I think it's Denmark, where they actually follow the the life of a group of men who do this. There is, in fact, synchronized swimming for men, Ricardo. Sign up. Um but it and it just talks to everything that we're talking about. Like they're in third space, they're in a public swimming pool, they go to like which is third space, they go to learn, they gather together and they and they live through kind of stuff together as this group of men learning to synchronize. It is hilariously funny because some of my favorite brands. Shy because we're in it. But I just was deeply touched by this movie. It was deeply touched. And I think part of the struggle with third space in general is that it does not generate income for the for the economy. That is a really big deal.

Bill 1:06:17

There's a similar movie that I really appreciated. I've used it, uh I've used it as a we do a series here at the church every year called Real Theology, our E E L Theology. And I think last year actually I used it. It's one of my top five movies that everybody has to watch called Young at Heart. And uh and it's a documentary about uh I think in in the UK, um, but it's uh uh a seniors choir, and they're all very senior, um, like very, very senior. Um and uh and they they they come together as a community choir, and uh they've got a director, Bob Sillman, I think is his name at the time. Um I think Bob Sillman has died since this uh uh documentary happened, but uh um they they they come together, but they learn songs by like Sonic Youth and Coldplay and um like garage punk band kind of stuff. And uh and it's such a like it's it's a it's a like beautiful movie. It's like it's tragic as well. Like they they talk very openly about the you know, like they're acquired members that die in the course of the documentary and they like they wrestle with all of it. Uh they joke a lot as well about just sort of the the trials of aging over time. Like there's kind of a um like you're vulnerable, but you're not vulnerable because like everybody's just so open and honest and transparent and um kind of free about it, right? So like everything from like passing kidney stones and choir practice through to right, um, you know, the one guy who's still got his driver's license while everybody else has been told they're no longer allowed to drive, right? So um and I think I think part of if I was to say like one of the things that I think is important in a in a in a in a good third space uh kind of setup or a uh a model is that it has to at least push the edges of your um your your comfort zone in some way, right? Um and it doesn't have to be like let's go out and skydive kind of thing, right? But just uh like even to be in a space where like like perhaps you're you're showing up to a social sector club event and you're and you're strangely not on the clock, right? And that might be the like, man, I'm actually kind of here and I'm not like there's not a deliverable that I need to, you know, do. And that is such a foreign and alien and like strange feeling for me, right? Um uh but but whatever it is, that it has to at least it has to push the the edges a bit, I think, right? Learning synchronized swimming would be a perfect one. Ricardo learning synchronized swimming. I am there for it. Um but uh but just something, something that requires you to to, I guess, like like truly connect. Like you can't fake it, right?

Ricardo 1:08:50

Um this is a funny story. My aunt is she's in a home and they go to the Kirby Center every Monday or something like that. She was telling me how they're teaching her how to play Wii tennis, 89 years old, playing wee tennis. Like, oh, we should play Wii one day. She's like, let's play, I'll beat you. The confidence she's built in with we straight up, she's like, you're gonna lose.

Laura 1:09:10

My my grandmother, my grandmother had a Wii, and uh she doesn't play it anymore. But yeah, the smack talk out of that lady was just like, I'm gonna cream you in Wii Bowling, and she did.

Seniors, Health, And The Loneliness Spiral

Karen 1:09:21

But I think that's what third space does, though. It builds our confidence by stretching us, like it makes us talk to the person across the table from us, which for some folks is hard if you're not a you know golden retriever, you know, social person. Um you know, even interacting with the person across the table from you is is a really big deal. And and it actually, I think, um not only enriches our life, but it extends our life because it it moves us away from that and you know, our life's getting smaller, which happens as we age and we start to kind of you know not do quite as much. And and we move into a place where we actually move out back out. I remember uh last year um uh I was uh I my boss and I were at a conference in in the States. This was pre the takeover. And um we the conference just happened to be 10 minutes from Disneyland. And so we spent our free day down in Disneyland, and there were these four ladies in the lineup in front of us who clearly were well into their 80s getting onto one of the rides, and the two of us kind of went goal, that is the goal in our 80s, running around Disneyland on all of the rides, that is our goal, you know, because like you know, they were they were you know in a in a space where they were expand, you know, can expanding and and being connected, and that's good for us.

Laura 1:11:04

They they say that social isolation, like is if you are socially isolated, it's as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And you know, and I think that that I think about that a lot, especially in the context of our seniors, because I'm I'm a fortunate human that actually I both of my grandmothers are still around. My my my dad's mom is going to be 100 in August, and we're preparing her preparing for her uh for a birthday party for her, and my other grandmother's gonna be 87 in October or 97 in October. And um, shout out to them, they'll probably not listen to this podcast, but hey grandmas. Um, and um they're really amazing. And I think one of the common things they both lost um my grandfather, um, my dad's mom longer longer ago than than my um my mom's mom, but um for them it's the social connection, I think. Like my my hundred-year-old grandma, she's kind of on her third round of friends in some ways, but like, you know, which happens, unfortunately. But um, but you know, but she's always made a point of being socially connected and being um, you know, getting out there even when she didn't feel like it. And now she's definitely like her brain is like sharp as attack and her body parts are falling off, kind of thing. But she still finds ways of bringing having her friends brought over and finding ways of getting out and going places, and my aunts take a take really good care of her, and and it's it's so key to aging well and feeling connected and feeling supported, and then just yeah, loneliness begets loneliness. Like you, the more you're alone, the more you tell yourself that people shouldn't invest in you, which means you're gonna be alone more, which means you're gonna be alone more, and it's kind of a slippery slope.

Ricardo 1:12:42

In in our line of work, um, I noticed that since I have in our in our in our local, the staff is very hybrid. You know, I I would rather them not be at the office, I'd rather them be in their workplaces as field staff, you know, policing the collective agreements and meeting the members and stuff like that. But they always gotta come back to the office and do their administrative work and all that kind of stuff. And I noticed that like they all they did was talk about work when they were at work, which is fine. But in our line of work, during an affordability crisis for grocery store employees and stuff, it's a lot of negativity and toxicity. And like uh, you know, I'll I've on many podcasts now over the past year, I've talked about the brutality of the grocery store industry and how everybody in this room probably hates them, but um it's the real thing, and the first thing they're going after are their staff. So what what I've done is like, you know, I I want to start a book club at the office, right? But the only rule I have is like we're not gonna do a book about like social justice work or labor rights or like the history of unions or like you know, like some some Bayard Ruskin can, you know, like march on on on the Capitol kind of stuff. Like, do whatever you want. Because if it's a fantasy book, if it's heated rivalry, I don't care, right? Just you care if it's heated rivalry. Perfectly, yes. But also shout out to the next podcast. Um my point is that like it it brings the people that are normally interacting in a negative way into like a positive space, which cuts down on the isolation from a group of individuals who are working 60, 65 hours a week and taking that time away from their families. So it's it's a good thing um for us to to

Queer Community And New Isolation

Ricardo 1:14:16

do. But the one thing I wanted to touch on, Bill, is that um like in in the game in the queer community, the to us LGBTQ community, it's isolation is becoming even more prevalent. Like um, of course, during co before COVID and for decades in the past, um, gay villages were a very prominent thing in most major cities like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, even in Calgary, most of 17th Avenue was considered an area. And we used to have when I first came out 25 years ago, like eight or nine different little gay bars or lesbian bars in the city, and now we're down to like two, right? Everything sort of went online. Um you know, it's interesting with the advent and the expansion and the blow up of like DoorDash and Skip the Dishes, so did like match, right? And apps and networking apps and dating apps, they blew up during COVID too. But with the um the takeover, I like that word. You know, with the conservative right-wing ideology um growing very quickly, especially with the um attacks on trans people and the the gay and lesbian community, um, everything is still very much staying online, um, interacting online and going back into the closet to protect yourself or save your job. When I've I was with a friend in in Phoenix, and when Target systematically rolled back all of their DEI policies, all of their gay and lesbian staff who felt open and safe at work took their rainbow pins off of their vests because the company no longer had policies that protected them. Yeah. Right? Yep. It put it they put it in line with most human rights legislations in the states, which don't protect sexual orientation and gender identity. So it's it's rolling back, and the the big problem is that we have an people time is marching on relentlessly, and now we have a a group of LGBTQ seniors that are looking for um assisted living, long-term care, aftercare, and they don't have families, or they don't have they don't feel safe in these spaces um to the point where their spouses can come visit and they can be affectionate and loving with each other or even talk about their marriages. So um loneliness is the the after effects of the pandemic, but is but the effects of the political climate we live in today in this province and from the effects of what's happening from down south is is is very harmful in a

Loneliness As A Political Weapon

Ricardo 1:16:42

lot of ways too.

Bill 1:16:42

So I'll be sort of right out and say it that I don't think you need to even need to look south anymore, right? Like Bill 25 here in Alberta is gonna do it in schools, right? Um and and so like I've I've been watching very closely and um doing a lot of letter writing and a lot of kind of prep work for the fact that like it it used to be um that my my the GSA at my kids' school, if uh people tore down the posters or tore down the pride flags, uh there was kind of uh an impetus to put them back up. And now what's basically happening is that we have a legislation coming down the turnpike that's gonna say no, take them all down and be done with, right? And and so again, for marginalized communities, um be they uh two SLGBTQ communities, uh like whatever it is, uh marginalized communities are um, I think more vulnerable now um than they even were 10, 15 years ago. Um uh for for loneliness, for isolation, for for being carved out of communities and being told, like, figure out how to either be this or stay out there. And that is uh, again, as social isolation, um it does not become just a mental, um, a mental concern, right? It becomes a physical concern. Um there's there's a spiritual element to it as well. Um it's all encompassing the impacts of loneliness, the impacts of isolation um on any human being, right?

Karen 1:18:01

So well, you can control people by doing that. If you if you divide people by categorizing them and labeling them, then you can control them because you you make you other them, you make them the enemy, and therefore you increase the loneliness. And then what do people do? They turn to places that are toxic and in a and and unhealthy to to connect and make community because they're actually being forced into that. So I actually think that what we're talking about in the terms of like creating third space, creating opportunities for people to gather in ways that are not about work, not about home, is actually an act of resistance.

Bill 1:18:39

100%. Absolutely.

Karen 1:18:41

Like I think the church has got a really important role to play in this and it needs to wake up to it. The church needs to wake up to the fact that we are should be actually at the vanguard of the resistance to the desire to separate our community, cause division, and cause loneliness because they are using that as a weapon against us.

Bill 1:19:02

For sure.

Laura 1:19:03

I think even the time we went for coffee a bunch of weeks ago, you were talking about how you just spent a bunch of time replacing the posters that people had just like torn down. Absolutely and that that's kind of a constant thing that you have to do. And I think it's just like I just think, you know, imagine if that was your kid. Like imagine if, you know, your kid has been told that they don't know.

Bill 1:19:22

Well, yeah, in this case it is my kid. I don't have to imagine.

Laura 1:19:25

You know, like I think, you know, like some of these things is just it it's it's staggering.

Bill 1:19:29

Now I'm thinking though, about hundred a hundred years old and ninety-seven years old, honestly, right? Um, because like I I do think, I wonder. I'm I'm young, I admit it. I'm not as young as I once was, but I am still young. Um and uh and I I will say that I notice, especially, especially because I do spend a lot of time um uh not to be a downer, but doing funerals for folks who have, you know, kind of that are kind of in that that that age group, right? Um and there is a there's a a mixed blessing curse, I think, on both sides of either being the first one to go or being the last one to go, right? You do the funeral where you're the first one to go, um, and and there's a large crowd of people that gather for that funeral. You know when you're the last one to go, right? You're the most robust, healthy, never smoked a day in your life, um, you know, and went to everybody's funeral as your social network, your social community uh started to die off. Um that it's a very it tends to be a very small funeral, right? Um but uh I wonder if they didn't also have some advantages uh from the world we live in now, uh just around how um community almost happened automatically in a lot of ways. Um like you went to the same church for decades and sat beside the same people. Um you all lived in the same community. Um, you knew your neighbors in ways that I don't think we really do anymore, uh, unless, you know, exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking, you belong to a lot of organize local organizations. I think like I still get hit up every once in a while by both the Lions and Rotary saying, like, hey, you should, but other than that, like um, and my response is always I don't got time for organized religion. Um I have time for disorganized religion, people. Um, but you worked with the same people every day as well. Turnover wasn't really a thing in the same way, like like there was just it was a it was a village, right? Um in a lot of ways. And now all of that, I think, is far more fragmented or or difficult to achieve and requires a lot more work, right? We have to we have to be intentional about it in ways that we probably didn't have to before. Um there's a lot more work that goes into that. And so um do we even know how to build community anymore at that level?

Rebuilding The Social Contract

Laura 1:21:49

I I think so. I think there's bits of it. And I think you've got to like you have to practice it. I think it's like a muscle you have to exercise. And I would say to as part of that, with like rotary, my dad's a Rotarian. And and um I would, you know, people have asked me sometimes, they're like, How did you, you know, how did you get into nonprofit? And how did you get to be the person like I was the kid that was like organizing the neighborhood kids to go pick up garbage for fun on a Saturday? Like that's the kind of human I am.

Bill 1:22:14

We are playing fast and loose with fun, but okay.

Laura 1:22:18

But um, you know, we're like, we're gonna collect pot bottles so we can adopt an animal at the zoo. Like I started my own nature club when I was a kid because I was a big nerd and really care. I've always just been a carer, I think. And you um, you know, I think there's I would say the sort of origin story of that is that I grew up in a like I'm a third generation volunteer and probably even beyond that. All four of my grandparents, super involved in their community, whether it was through like my my grandmother and my dad's parents were really involved in their Unite Church, they, you know, fish fries and all the things that you do uh in community. And then my other grandparents, they, you know, they they volunteered in their community, but once they retired, they would go down to Florida for six months of the winter and they would volunteer in state parks. And the sort of requirement to get free camping in a state park would be that you had to volunteer eight hours a week was sort of the thing. My grandparents like it wouldn't, it you know, the probably 50, 60 hours a week volunteering, you know, whether it's my grandma like wrestling with like um uh non-native plants in the like bush of the case.

Ricardo 1:23:18

I was thinking something else in state park.

Laura 1:23:20

I was like, I mean, no wonder she lived to 100, right?

Ricardo 1:23:22

Maybe other things, but uh she, you know, like yeah, all the things.

Laura 1:23:27

But um, you know, I think that there's we've and I think at one time, Calgary in particular, really prided ourselves on being the volunteer city. And I think we've really kind of lost that, and that there's not necessarily there's great organizations like Youth Central that help young people discover volunteering, but there's not a lot of volunteer opportunities for people to kind of like either do it together as a family or young people to do it, and also, you know, the time people are working multiple jobs because the economy is not the same as it was. Like it is a luxury to be able to have the time and space and comfort to be able, it's a privilege to be able to volunteer. But we've, you know, because of all of these factors, we've lost that ability to to you know make those kinds of social connection where we're also working for good together and moving in the same direction together and how you meet people.

Karen 1:24:13

Yeah. I think one of the pieces for me is that uh volunteering or or building that community, building this community of care and and sustainability is also an intergenerational project. And I think in many ways we've kind of generated, like created generation of behaviors. So, you know, uh if you're a certain age, you go to Rotary. If you do this, you are involved, you know, if you're a a kid, you might volunteer at a school project. But you're not we're not as um connected in that intergenerational piece, and that's how you build the that's how you build the the community around it, right? Like we model for our children, we take our children along to things, but we we don't just take them because you know that's how we become good parents, it's because it's important to the community to be part of that. And they see older people volunteering, and so they start to realize that, or we would hope that they would start to realize that this is actually a a lifetime project being part of a community. It's not something you drop into for a couple of years and then disappear out of. And I think some of the what I might even call hypermobility of our society makes people think that they can just drop in and pull out again. Whereas, you know, you know, years of volunteering at a park in order to get your free camping is is not just about you know, I'm gonna get the free camping. It's I actually believe in this. And that's how you build ownership. Yeah, it's about the ownership and and and it's about re-strengthening what I I call the st social contract. Right? We have a social contract with one another, we have an obligation to care for one another, because if we are out in the wilderness, that's the only way we're surviving, is if we care for one another. And and we seem to have uh assumed in our postmodernist world where everything is a door dash call away, that we don't actually need each other. And we do, because we're we're built to need one another. Human beings are built to be in community, and if we can actually work on restrengthening the social contract with ha we have with each other, so you know, individualism, thank you, thanks for playing the game, but it's time for you to move on because we see what rampant individualism does, right? We we can witness to that, it causes us to be isolated, it causes us to be lonely, it causes division, it puts people back in the closet. If we if we allow rampant individualism to continue as it is, we are on a really we're we're destroying our world, we're destroying our communities, rebuilding the social contract, making space for people to be with one another, to engage, and that's how we build rebuild the social contract. We start, we sit down over coffee and we learn who we our neighbors are. We learn to trust one another again.

Laura 1:27:32

And I think there's some cultural context there too, because I would say, you know, as as a as a white, you know, North American human, um, this is that individualism is a real thing. But I think there's other cultures around the world that do that better than us. There is, you know, there's more intergenerational living in other places. Whereas, like, you know, I was still living at home, you know, boomerang a few times, but like we're living at home by 30, and the sort of stigma around that was like, oh, you live. With your parents? Like, that's kind of weird. But like in other cultures, you know, that there is that those people. Grandparents are helping raise young, young kids. And I, you know, my my four and a half-year-old um nephew is in town from Halifax this week. And it's been so fun to see him engage with my parents and vice versa. And uh, you know, I think, but I think there's a lot to be learned from other cultures that do that have more of this, um, kind of community focus and that intergenerational connectivity, and that there is that expectation that, you know, in some cultures the the oldest child or the oldest son is who the parents move in with, you know, and and and there's probably you know different challenges and things like that too. It's not a perfect system, I'm sure. But um, but I think you know, there's a lot to be learned by connecting with folks that are different from us on how they do that and how they build, you know, relationship and community with each other.

How Movements Capture Community

Ricardo 1:28:52

It's interesting how the the right wing and more specifically the mega movement in the south or even right here in Alberta, um they they capitalize on individualism or like the the supremacy of one race over the other or one sexuality over the other. They capitalize on individual freedoms and small government and keep but they've mastered the rally. They've mastered the community. And you know, you look at like before the advent of these these populist movements, um Black Lives Matter, right? Um uh, you know, uh Pride, Pride Months and Pride Weeks, um, or um the the one for for f for feminism and women's rights, I forget what the the Me Too Me Too, right? Me Too as well, right? Like they were big rallying cries that created safe spaces and community groups and created things like Black Lives Matter Square in DC and all this kind of stuff. And it kind of faded away. And when they when when the people got attacked, it's like we forgot how to stand up for each other and be there for each other with all that we've learned. But what I noticed is that these rallies, these Trump rallies, and these these even these UC they they as much as we in me perhaps in this room think that the governments in power are doing wrong and they're not that they're not um they're not doing good um by people, they've the rallies are are bringing people together and they've built community. Yeah and they've built uh meeting a need for somebody. Yeah, they've caught the third spaces, right? They've captured the third spaces, and um you know the grassroots movements are there. I I see uh planning meetings and c talks and stuff all the time. I saw this thing in Calgary that's happening now where you go to a pub and there's a lecture in a pub now where you and it's actually sold out for the next few, and a pr university professor of a specific topic and area comes and does a lecture in a pub, and and they do it at the um the one on 17th Avenue.

Bill 1:30:52

Um I feel like you're ruining pubs. The ship and anchor.

Ricardo 1:30:56

They sell out. The ship and anchor hosted the last one, it's sold out. Wow. And just to listen to this university professor talk about like, I don't even know, economics. Who can who knows? But there is this growing movement of community and third spaces again and safe spaces for people. Um, but it's it's surprising to me how and I don't know how they mastered the the art of community.

Laura 1:31:16

But it's like the salons, you know, like they used to have salons where people could get together in a safe space to debate differences. And you know, these are obviously also like very white male-dominated and old timiness. But you know, I think the concept is good in terms of having people come together to talk about things where they don't necessarily agree. And there's not really that like it kind of goes to a really awful or dark or like place where you're just like, whoa, we can't, I don't know if we can come back from this. And I think yeah.

Bill 1:31:42

We've had opportunities even on this podcast in the past where we've where we've like we've sat at the table and kind of gone, oh, wait a second, like we may not actually, you know, be as in sync as we thought we might be, you know, at the start. And and the the goal has always been from the get-go that even if there is disagreement, like we gotta be able to model a different way of being able to talk it out, right? Um, as opposed to shouting across the void and vilifying entire groups of people and and and you know, kind of drawing lines and saying which side are you on, there's gotta be a way to at least be able to and again, not agree to disagree. I don't think that's actually the answer, right? But there's there's still got to be some element of dignity, um, respect, and dialogue that happens um to at least kind of bridge the gap that seems to be getting bigger by the day in every other third space, right? Um so like I I I can't even remember who it was that I was talking with, but I was I was talking with somebody just recently about all I hear is 300,000 signatures on a separatist petition, right? Nobody talks about the 476,000 on the stay in Canada petition, right? Um, and there is something about uh we have we have lost the tool that was actually kind of the the greatest tool that um a lot of the grassroots movement have, which was organizing, right? Um and uh and and and somehow now we like we wrote the book for them and then handed them the user's manual and walked away. Yeah. Um and and so uh like there's something really terrifying about that for

Hope As A Practice

Bill 1:33:09

me. Uh that like the one thing that allowed us to um or allowed me to not have to just like start getting really angry and going and breaking things um is is no longer in our our toolbox anymore. Um and and and so like I I spent I I was up in Edmonton a couple of weeks ago and we drove by the legislature in both directions to go to a uh Gay Strait Alliance conference in Edmonton. And uh, and both times we were driving by and um and I was just going, like, man, like we are in the shadow of the place where everything we are going to meet about um actually happens. And um, like it it there's just something really weird about the fact that like it's a very small group uh that is gathering for this uh and nobody from outside Edmonton really. There were three of us that think that weren't from Edmonton proper, right? So um like it just felt really like there is a sense of almost like, man, like we are really alone in this. And then it's like, well, no, but we're not. There are 476,000 people signed a petition long before 300,000 signed another one, right? Um, where did we lose the where did we lose the ability to build safe spaces to come together and be safe and or even control the narrative?

Ricardo 1:34:21

Yeah, right? Like why, why, why, why isn't that narrative out there of the 476,000 people? I mean, I'm really enjoying the narrative right now about the three million names that got put on that list for that. The data leaks. That's not gonna that's the data leak is not good, but for for me or anyone, but especially for them. Um, but like what what what are they doing that's that their smaller number is able to control the narrative, right?

Bill 1:34:44

And that a a larger majority is left feeling alone, right? Like that is what is so like when we talk about loneliness from an activism perspective, it is really easy to feel very alone um when when in fact you're like you're 150%, right? Um like that's a substantial number uh in in difference. But the lone like harnessing the power of loneliness, um, yeah, like there's impacts even to your ability to feel like you can to feel like you can build a better world, um, to to be able to help people, to, to be able to even create third spaces that are safe, right?

Laura 1:35:20

So it's loneliness as a weapon, yeah, isn't it? Like it is about you know dividing people and creating these things that they're you know looking for, and it's similar to some of this radicalization of young men and and things where people, you know, some of these young people who you know feel a bit disenfranchised or whatever and and have you know glommed onto this thing because they feel like these these internet influencers see them. And it's like, oh yeah, I have that same. And it's like, no, if you talk to your like talk to your sister about how she, you know, how she feels about the stuff that's coming out of this is this gentleman's mouth that you're now kind of holding up. And I think it's it is weaponizing loneliness. And I and I think it is something that's not just unique to our time. There's, you know, this is the kind of been part of the playbook for many of different wars and different sort of historical, you know, moments. Um, and it's a shame we haven't kind of yeah, figured out how to overcome that. And especially with all this, you know, like different technology or different, you know, ways of connecting, that there isn't the like the the the good movement needs to be louder. And we're we're also, I think we don't we don't feel like we deserve to be angry or we don't we shouldn't be allowed to be angry because we're we're kind of on the the side of the We're supposed to be more enlightened, right?

Bill 1:36:37

Yeah, the side of it, right?

Laura 1:36:38

And I think that it is a time to actually kind of get angry about this stuff and go out and break stuff. Yeah, go out in there and just like rewrite this thing because I think you know it's allowing people with some pretty problematic ideas to to sort of yeah, capture the narrative and and it that's you know, that's just gonna create loneliness in all sorts of communities and and yeah, and and also chain like whatever the rollout of all of this stuff is in the end, like that's gonna change the fabric of Alberta forever.

Bill 1:37:08

Yeah, but like belonging isn't gonna exist on the other side, right? That's the that's the tragedy, right? Like we're gonna tell you you're alone right now, and and like you said, right? These rallies are still meeting a need for them, right? Yeah, because you're you're you're targeting the place where they feel like they're not seen, where they're feel where they feel like they don't belong, where they feel like they're alienated or isolated or alone. Um, but them suddenly feeling part of the community doesn't exist on the other side, right? Um once you're used, once you're used for your purpose, um you're you're gonna be back to to where you were, right? Um that's the that's the great tragedy of it all, is that uh that this does not lead to you suddenly being no longer alone, no longer lonely.

Laura 1:37:50

They'll find something about you that is problematic in the next part of the chapter, and you'll also be ostracized or spaces are there though.

Ricardo 1:38:00

How do you get them out, right? Like you're absolutely right. Like this the divide and conquer is what's what they're doing to us, right? If I was and I thought about this morning, I was like, if I lived in Tennessee today, I'd be really pissed off, especially Memphis, right? So what they did was they redistrict they drew out redrew all the maps, divided Memphis into three areas, which was predominantly black, and just gave those seats to Republicans now. So now the governor's all happy to sign the bill and say we're going with a full Republican slate to the Capitol. And I was like, that's horrible. I would get up and I would rise up and I would pay people like, hold on a second, she's doing that in Alberta, right? She went through the consultation, the consultations are all like, no, no, you shouldn't do this. And she's like, Yeah, I'm just gonna do it anyway, right? Yeah, like this happening right here in our province, right? And if people are not angry enough about the fundamental rights that we hold dear, like voting, right? Like the right to exist, like the right to even just feed into the capitalist system that we buy into, you know, enough make enough money to buy a TV, go out for dinner, god forbid you take a trip to Edmonton once in a while, right? If we're not making enough money for well, now we're in the world where you can't even afford bread, right? Or a tank of gas, right? If we're not living in a world where every single person, regardless of what they look like or who they are, can at least just go to work and do that, then that in and lies the problem as to why A, people can't come out and protest and join third spaces because they're too busy working, right? Or B, they they there's something that has happened in our world where individualism has creeped over, uh, and we we we want to fight, but we just don't know where to start, right? Well, and so where's the narrative gone for that, right?

Bill 1:39:29

I actually wonder though, like one thing that you said earlier about like you wanted to start a book club of work, right? The the idea was that uh um like there's so much, you know, like people when they're at work, they're talking about work, and and you didn't say this exactly, but what I heard was um like the the the work talk is hopeless.

Ricardo 1:39:44

Yeah, right?

Bill 1:39:46

Um and so the whole idea is like we're gonna do something that has a positivity to it that is not let's read marks. Um I would have done it by the way. I know you would love to read Marx, yeah. Um but uh but but that honestly it that is that is a totally different thing that hopefully uh whether it infuses some joy or just some like there's something more than this, misery, right? Um, into the into the discussion. I wrote it down, right? I wrote it down as kind of a sign of a hope rather than just the despair, right? If you want to build a third space, it has to, it has to provide some kind of a sense of hope that there's something there's something good.

Laura 1:40:20

And hope is still rebellious, right? Yeah.

Bill 1:40:22

And uh and so like I think even like don't get me wrong, um, all of the right to exist, right to vote, right to like I get all of that. Those are like for me, those are actually very lofty, like they're they're core rights, but they're very lofty, right? I I sit so often wondering, like, um, like, why can't we just agree that, you know, my ailing parent that is in a care facility is entitled to good care by well-compensated, um, mentally well themselves, like like cared for people that can then care for others, right? If the if the principle is you cannot bring wellness to anywhere when you are not well yourself, um then make sure people are cared for. Make sure your your staff, you know, I I know as a minister what nursing homes or senior facilities or whatever um in Calgary have rampant turnover. And there's usually a lot of signs, besides just that I know the rampant turnover, that these are places where people are, where the staff are not well cared for and cannot care well for the people they care for either, right? If we believe that as we grow old, we are entitled to dignity and care and and to thrive and live wholeheartedly and live well at whatever age and stage we're at, wherever we need to be to do that well, then why the hell are we not, you know, making that the issue that it needs to be in a province that is seeing that decline so rampantly, right? But it always comes back to me uh to be this thing where the people that you really need to be able to, for lack of a better word, mobilize are the people who are experiencing the hopelessness of the system, right? Um and it is a really horrible thing. Again, we talked about the idea of tell the minister to take care of yourself, right? It is no more difficult or no more um morally questionable to say, hey, seniors population that is that is like suffering under this model, like rise up. Um, right? Like what a miserable thing to give them the ownership of, right? Um but in the middle of it all, all it leads to is more rampant loneliness, rampant decline, um hopelessness, right? And and we're better than this. Uh we believe we are better than this, right?

Karen 1:42:40

So I think the system actually is like the system is actually trying to design itself or or it's being designed to uh make us all live in a world of despair. Because if we are in despair, there is nothing to fight for. If we create opportunities either in our workspace or in our or in our third spaces or our home spaces that are are about hope, then people have something to fight for. People have something to rally around. And I think they've done a really good job with this control of the narrative, they've done a really good job of actually creating a culture of despair. So we don't fight for the rights of seniors in care facilities, we don't fight for the rights of teens to be in safe space, we don't write fight for workers to have um a living wage because we're we're just we're being bombarded by this message that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket, and if we all survive to till tomorrow, we've done really well. Well, I don't want to survive till tomorrow. I wanna I wanna have people blossom into thrive for a while. And I want them to thrive into their 95th birthday. Like David Adenborough, who is a yay, love love David Adenborough, so uh kind of British icon, had his hundredth birthday celebrated at the Albert Hall in London.

Ricardo 1:44:07

They named a wasp after him. They named a wasp after him.

Laura 1:44:09

They named a wasp after him. He's amazing. That's like that's like Peak, you know?

Bill 1:44:15

The bug, not the Protestant, right? Yeah, okay.

Karen 1:44:18

But but in some ways, in some ways, his he his kind of how he's lived out his life has kind of been this beacon of hope. I mean, he's taught truth about the environment, but he's also kind of been a beacon of hope, so much so that they had a national celebration for his birthday, you know. But for me, that is that's an act of resistance. That his that his life has been an act of resistance about around the environment and his rally people around it. But I think for me, building hope into our lives, um, showing people that there is an alternative existence to the despair we're being fed every day. I don't even watch the news. I can't. No, I don't know. We're being fed so much despair because there is a narrative that the owners of our media system want us to buy into. Well, it is about buying, isn't it?

Laura 1:45:07

Because the people who are despairing are going to shop for things to fill a void that they're that community and neighbors and connection and community would fill before. And you shared things with your neighbors and you didn't need to necessarily go out and buy things, or if you were having trouble or you're sick, then you know you had all these people showing up with soup. Um, and so being in despair is good for capitalism, isn't it?

Bill 1:45:33

Yeah.

Karen 1:45:33

So how do we how do we shine Hulk back

Removing Barriers To Belonging

Karen 1:45:36

into the world? Like that again is an act of resistance. Like let's shine Hulk back into the world. And in shining hope back into the world, we create community and and we support each other. Like, you know, I I can have hope about certain things, but if I know you're in there with me, Laura, then it's like, yes, there's two of us.

Ricardo 1:45:53

You know, I think you made a good point where you have to reduce and remove barriers to third spaces, like remove the signs of say parking is maximum of an hour, right? Remove entry fees, or like even if you have an entry fee, make it 25 cents or 50 cents, and like and be able to fund community centers enough so that they can support like less fortunate people from being able to gather together in a safe space, right? Have more like free nights and at swimming pools and community centers. Like I think there's also no more lonely in existence than being a new Canadian and being an immigrant in this country. And I always think one of my former co-workers, she had come from Barbados and she'd like had a hell of a time finding any Bayesians in Calgary, right? I mean it's uh like the population of Barbados is like a third of the population of Calgary, right? But she said, I would just walk into safely and see another black person and smile at them and say hi, and they thought it was crazy. But right? But on the other side of the equation, too, we have this narrative where people are coming into our country and working for lesser wages and taking our jobs. And I think to myself, like, first of all, they don't know that they're taking your job, and they don't know that they're working for lesser money. And why are we pointing the finger at them when we should be pointing the fingers at the bastards that are paying them less money in the first place? Right? Like, they're only earning the money here. Like my my coworker lives with the uh a person that came from Afghanistan, and he said, I bought a rice cooker from the house, and the guy didn't know what it was, and he was so happy when he found out what a rice cooker was. He's like, now the rice cooker is almost gonna break because he's making rice all day long instead of using the pot on the stove, right? There's new experiences and there's loneliness all over our immigrant cultures, especially full families. Um, and those are the kind of spaces that third spaces would be so helpful in, right? Just to connect with other people in your community. Like I've seen a decline in the community associations and the community centers. I live in Fairview, and our community association is just an online portal, but they still do like movies in the park, and they still do like parade of garage sales, and they just do bowling at the at the the bowling arena. Like they're doing things that um are also that are not only accessible, so it's free, but it's also community building. And I think I also think to myself too, like they had that the hockey rink where Indefinite Arts is and the whole rink just like collapsed, right? Like and they just never put anything back up again. Right? It's just a big empty patch of grass because there was no funding for that kind of stuff. But I remember the rink always like the rink was used so much the roof collapsed, like it was just not as if it was like in disarray, it was used all the time, right? Yeah, now where do those people go?

Laura 1:48:24

Well, no, I live in McKenzie Town, and when I first moved there, they had a there's a spot kind of where the C train may or may not eventually go. Um but uh where there's a like a a uh rink pad kind of, um, which you know, if they're able to keep eyes on it in the winter, it's a bit of a miracle. But they uh used to be they had a bunch of ramps there where kids could go and and and um there's basketball hoops too, but there's a bunch of where they could go and skateboard.

Bill 1:48:50

Skateboard, yeah.

Laura 1:48:51

And somebody, you know, was like, these are not in good shape, and they're just gone. Like there's no, and there's been talk a little bit about, you know, like we we need a skate park in Mackenzie Town and all these other things. But I've lived there now like a dozen years and still no skate park. But there was, you know, I'd drive by there on my way home from work and there'd be dozens of young people out there just like hanging out, using the facilities, being together outside, away from screens and all of these other things. And I think they said we're not good at that kind of like, and and we don't, and we sort of judge kids too for that.

Ricardo 1:49:23

It's like I was gonna say it happened the other day in the wintertime. There was kids with a Bluetooth speaker playing music, and they were tobogganing down the hill. And I just happened to walk my dog around there, and someone called the police on them. And so the police were there, and I was like, what's going on? They're like, Oh, someone complained about these kids. They're tobogganing down a hill.

Bill 1:49:39

Yeah.

Ricardo 1:49:40

What more do you want them to do? All right, yeah. Stay locked up in their houses and then you criticize them for not having any social skills and being locked up in their houses playing video games? They're tobogganing down a hill. The only difference is like they weren't able to bring the record player out of the room with the long extension cord to play their LPs, like you are like you're used to doing. They've got this thing called a Bluetooth. I was baffled. I told the police, I was like, I know. The cops like, I had to come. They called. I was like, it's okay. And then they've never seen them there again. I've never seen any kids tobogging down the hill again.

Laura 1:50:10

Yep.

Ricardo 1:50:10

Right?

Laura 1:50:11

It's kind of like footloose, like, don't be dancing.

Ricardo 1:50:13

Yeah.

Bill 1:50:13

Right. Wow, there's a there's a dated reference now.

Laura 1:50:18

But kind of, right?

Final Takeaways From Each Voice

Bill 1:50:19

All right, so here's what I've got fluidity of agenda. If we're going to talk about third spaces, uh, or no agenda at all. The agenda, the only agenda item is that there is no agenda. Uh, give it back to the people, check your ego, and let them kind of run with it and make it what it needs to be. Um, infuse some hope into it uh so that it's not just the the despair and the the sadness and the the work talk. Um do something that pushes your edges a bit, keeps you engaged, you can't fake it. Make sure that it's diverse just came up, right? That there's opportunities for uh intergenerational and diverse, uh, and as much as possible barrier-free and accessible. Uh, did I cover the list that we've put out here quite well? Google's got it all covered here. Yeah, we think we're lost.

Ricardo 1:51:02

Doors fly open.

Bill 1:51:03

So I am aware of time and uh I want to be respectful of that. The tradition here, as always, is everyone kind of gets the last word, right? So we're gonna start with Ricardo, because that's just how it works. But you get uh if you uh if you wanted to give your your last word, the thing you want uh to be remembered, if everything else from this conversation is forgotten. Uh go. No pressure.

Ricardo 1:51:24

I mean you summar you summarize it up, which is pretty good. But I think I I love the third space thing. And I love um just putting our like these are the worst things that ever got invented, but now we're all we don't know how to survive without them, right? Um He's pointing at his phone. We're on podcast, we're on my phone, and I I think that if I just put it down and like go out for a walk or like find there's lots of community events and stuff out there. It's your opportunity to like bridge that gap of loneliness with people, right? Don't forget our seniors, don't forget our marginalized groups of people, but it's it's uh and don't forget your neighbors, right? Very often we we find ourselves not even knowing the people that live right next door to us or work in the next office to us. And so there's opportunities, and in our age group, and I would say like those born like I don't know, pre-9-11. I don't know what the what the what the magic date is, we still have social skills. Like we still remember cordless phones that weren't cell phones, and like looking up phone books and using map directories and and all those fun things and going to shopping malls and it's uh a world is a better world is possible, but you don't have to hit the rewind button. You just have to put the machine down and go outside and enjoy the sun, right? Um you don't have to you don't have to give up what you have. You can there's things that your phone can do that will be a magical experience. And you had talked about you know kids not dancing because they're worried about you know have being recorded and being all over the internet. But I think that we can use our cell phone cameras to record and document beautiful, beautiful things and put that all over the world. And in in that instance and in that um sort of act, we are changing the narrative, right?

Karen 1:53:15

So I I think my response is a bit of a churchy response to this. Um The church was built on community. Um it was supposed to be a community first and foremost. It was not supposed to be an institution, it was supposed to be a community that supported itself against the oppressive regimes, regimes of its time and place. The church is a the church should uh re-engage with that idea. There is a narrative about being a Christian that is negative and uh very toxic. And I think churches like the United Church of Canada have an obligation to re-engage with the radical hospitality ministry of hope that Christ offered. And that is a and that is a uh a theology of eating together, being together, supporting one another, and loving one another, and offering the world an alternative vision of what it could be. And and and I think now is our moment to do it. And it's and it's scary, but it is uh uh it's living into the faith.

Laura 1:54:35

That's really good. I like that radical hospitality. I'm gonna use that. I definitely use that. So I feel like that's what we do at social sector club is a lot of radical hospitality and deep care for folks. And I think, you know, I think a lot of this is, you know, people would be like, well, where do I start? I feel like I don't have the thing. And I think it is a muscle that you have to exercise. I think you have to practice. I used to say to my my team, despite being, you know, golden retriever, I'm also an introvert. So, you know, I'd have young people that come up to me and be like, I can't talk in front of people. And I said, Well, you know, I'm like an introvert too. It's hard for me to talk in front of people. It's something that I've like practiced and I've learned and I've stretched that muscle, and I'm talking on a podcast in front of lots of folks. And so it's something that I've really worked on. But you, you know, I what I've kind of started to do in the last bunch of years is these little experiments to sort of see, you know, like play with that idea of social connection. Because I think it's like, you know, acknowledging another person's humanity can sometimes be like, well, what if I offend them? What if I interrupt them? What if I, you know, whatever that looks like. But I think, you know, challenging yourself. So I did this experiment a couple months ago where I decided I was going to anybody with a name tag that I saw in my life, so, you know, like grocery store folks, things like that, thanking them and using their name. And if it's really interesting to watch people change, like blossom. Some of them are a little like, how do you know my name? And then they recognize, oh, I have a name tag on. Uh, so they're like, How do you know me? Um, but I think, you know, you're you're looking in the eyeballs of another person and not just like like a robot. They scan, you know, you're scanning through and it's like boop, you click the thing and off you go. And you you sort of you don't even acknowledge that this person has provided a service for you or is a is a whole human doing a job that's really hard and on their feet all day and and really finding ways of like doing these social experiments. And I did this other one um around uh kind of self-talk, and and and I think there's some self-care in that too. It's like, what would I say if I was talking to my dog? Like, what if I talk to my dog, like like what if I talk to myself, if I talked, like I talked to my dog or my my rabbit or whoever, and it's like you're always encouraging to them, right? Like, what if you flip that around? And so I think it's about you know using, you know, using name tags and acknowledging other people. Or um, I really like to go around and like compliment other people's dogs. We have a lot of dogs in Mackenzie Town. And so, you know, I could go on a walk and like see 25 dogs, and I'm you know, like building that connection with these people, and I see some of those folks again, and it's like, oh, you you have three dogs now, you have four. That's so cool. And, you know, it is about finding those little snippets that you can reach out and you know, connect with somebody, and that's all it has to be. And I think there's actually even a term that they've come up with in terms of social snacking, and it's just like asking people meaningfully what their day is like, and that's been shown to be like co-regulating for people in terms of like calming people down and lowering your heart rate. There's all these benefits, and I think we just need to like continue to try to activate those muscles and sort of um when our brains tell us that you know we're not worth, you know, investing in, or why nobody wants to be our friends, or these all these kind of social isolation messages our own brains give us, is just try to keep practicing those little things that help you get out of that, out of that rut and and and build greater connection for yourself and community and you know, find find folks that you know you enjoy being in space with and and and and try because I think that that there's so much benefit. And we all leave these kinds of things being like, oh, I feel better. Like I don't know, I can't put a finger on it, but I know that I feel better having been here with all of you tonight. And it just, you know, just gotta keep trying and keep pushing against the systems that would tell us that we shouldn't be doing those things.

You Are Not Alone

Bill 1:58:20

No, before I give my last words, I just want to say thank you. First off, uh thank you to Ricardo as always. But a special thank you to Karen and to Laura for being here tonight. This has been uh a really great conversation and there is a lot of hope in it. Um my final words uh or my final thoughts for the night uh uh dovetail obviously with everything you have all said already. Um, but uh like like doing the work of trying to continue to maintain connection for yourself and for others um is is work that always requires perseverance. Um it demands perseverance of us, uh, and it demands courage of us as well. Um I don't think it's I don't think it's always as easy as it might once have been. Um not that it's ever been easy uh throughout human history. Um but I do believe, honestly, that uh in every day and every age, but certainly uh in this time and place that we're in now, your health does depend on it. Whether you consider that to be your physical, your emotional, your spiritual health. Um and you are not alone in doing it. Uh and and if I could, if if you forget everything else, know that you are not alone. Um but it doesn't happen without you either. Um and that's the that's the great paradox, I think, of it all, right? Is that uh um you're not alone, but we can't do it without you. We cannot build uh the the a community of care without you because you matter, uh whoever you are, wherever you're listening to this. Uh you matter uh and your your well-being and uh everything, the gift that you are, matters. So um as demanding as it might be uh of your uh you know your your skills or your comfort or um your your sense of your own ability, uh you are the gift that uh community of care needs. And um I guess asking yourself to continue to practice, to continue to find ways to to engage, to to do it as an act of either self-care or to do it as an act of resistance. Uh the reason doesn't matter, the outcome does, right? Find ways to uh continue to remind yourself that you are not alone and to surround yourself with people who will make sure that even if you start to wonder, uh you'll never be able to forget that uh you matter and that you are not alone. So, with that, uh thank you again to everybody for being here tonight. Thank you for our live audience that has been here in the room, and uh we are going to sign off until next month. Loneliness often convinces us that we are alone. I hope this conversation reminds you that you are not. Community does not magically happen, though. It gets practiced and built and chosen over time. Sometimes that can look pretty awkward and pretty imperfect, and other times it looks like one small act of courage at a time. Maybe for you that looks something like reaching out to an old friend or joining something or starting something new. Other times it can be something as simple as sitting a little longer in a place where people are already gathering and just letting yourself be known. Whatever it looks like for you, please don't disappear.

Subscribe, Patreon, And Closing Blessing

Bill 2:01:27

If you like what you've heard, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. You can join our Patreon and keep the conversation going, or you can learn more at preparedrown.com. However it is that you engage, know that you are not alone and you are always invited into a larger community of care for you and for everybody in this world. Until next time, take care of yourself because you truly do matter. I'm Bill Weaver, and this has been Prepare to Drown.