Neot Semadar: a community where the paradox of being is felt and dealt with on a everyday basis
I have been thinking for a while how to put into words the experiences and feelings I have here, in Neot Semadar, towards the place and its routine. It’s specially hard because the non-verbal communication, which is specially stimulated here, also applies to when one need to explain this place. You have to feel it. There are no words to translate what life is like here, it’s not about language, it’s about words and how verbally (or “writtenly”) expressing this experience naturally reduces it.
A few things have been popping into my mind since my first day. At first, they felt a bit disconnected, too contradictory, but now, they fit. It’s an intense place, very unique and singular in many many ways. At the same time, it’s more of the same: work, routine, dealing with people you do not always get along, and so on.
We are a communist community in the middle of the Negev desert, isolated, most of us living mainly just inside the kibbutz’s grounds, there is a purpose and a philosophy for searching for well being and self-knowledge. But the background soundtrack is of canons and shooting guns, we are surrounded by army bases. Paradoxal.
It is said to do our best always baring in mind to respect our individual time and limits. However, at the same time, efficiency is a word and a concept really present everywhere here. Efficiency. Quick also comes up quite a lot. Paradoxal.
Being in a communist community is also baring in mind that the common needs will come before individual needs. Yet, it’s place focused on going inside oneself. We are always questioning how and why something affects me in this or that way. Even when talking about a team or a work fulfilled as a team, the goal is to look at you, not the whole, you and how it moves you individually. Common ruling. Individual looking. Paradoxal.
My first reaction was: wait, what? Something is not right here, it does not fit. But then, digging a bit further, it finally clicked. Human nature. We are paradoxal. We are a lot at the same time as we are only one. And we can be all of that at once. There isn’t right or wrong when it comes to being. There just is.
Neot Semadar showed me in a very literal way that the first step to live with ease is to accept. Here, I accepted the challenge of being in a place where there is not one single element of my comfort zone or even of the lifestyle I live and want to keep living. It was hard, but fighting against it wouldn’t change the reality. I either could quit or take a deep breath, accept and be here. I chose the latter, it wasn’t easy, however, it was very empowering.
Most importantly, it took this acceptance into an intimate dimension. I had already started this process of accepting myself the way I truly am and trying to be more gentle towards myself before coming here. But, being in a such intense place where I concretely needed to accept the place and my misfits in it was a challenge. I had no other choice than to be gentle with my limitations.
My cycle here ended, this is my 45th day, ending my 6th week and I will go back to my “regular” life feeling empowered to deal with tough situations. For they will come, I can’t know how and when, but they will come. Putting myself in such an extreme place for me and being able to complete the time intended had this very positive effect.
*This text was written to share at the international volunteers meeting. It’s part of the experience to have these meeting and it’s asked for us to share a bit of our experience before leaving.