Gathering People

In 2011, I was living in Nuvali, an ecocity in the Philippines. I’d just built my first home and documented my journey to sustainable living in a blog, MyNuvaliHome.

I’m now incorporating that blog into Montalut, and came across abrasive comments on my About section, where I shared the Why of my blog. Reading between the lines, one can tell that the person was angry at something, yes, and it was at the promise of Nuvali.

When you’re building something out of the future, all you have is your vision of it. You are emerging something new, something that doesn’t yet exist. To see it too, some people need a proof of concept that it’s been done before or that you’ve built a prototype of sorts. Some need more than that–they want to feel it directly benefiting them before they jump in. If the benefits fall short of the promise, they bite.

And yet a few already see the future with you, and choose to journey with you.

Reading that comment today made me recall what community is, at least to me.

Here’s the reply I wrote back in 2012, and it still rings true today:

Nuvali is a beautiful place that I’ve personally invested in, and it’s just one of the many new developments in the South that seeks to address the congestion problem in Metro Manila.  Anything can happen years from now, but as someone who’s already betting on this community, I also hope to be an active part of what will make it truly a home — along with my future neighbors and those looking to contribute to and benefit from alternative communities like this.

Community is what we make of it, and as with anything in life, you get what you give. You give nothing, and you get nothing back. You give love and joy, and you get love and joy back.