Missing Tooth

I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about how to build communities. I am reading 'Sapiens' in which it talks about the Cognitive Revolution which preceded the Agricultural Revolution and Industrial Revolution and completely changed the way we organised ourselves. By being able to anthropomorphize groups, we were able to create communities that took on identities. Making stories into 'real' people. We speak of countries, religions, countries, companies, political parties, genders and all other sorts of stereotypes as if they exist separately. Creating communities is giving life in the form of a story.   

This morning Gem and I went on a Street Art Tour of Paris. One of the places was called the Missing Tooth. This is a name for where buildings are torn down, or fall down, or for whatever reason are left vacant. It reminded me of 'the $2 thing' in Christchurch, New Zealand. Christchurch responded to tragedy by coming together. In Paris, an area was turned over to artists after a building collapsed. People are resilient, creative and able to fill our lives, our missing teeth, with stories that bind us. This is most obvious when things fall apart. When all is okay, we can become complacent. We can get angry and throw stones at each other. We forget we are on the same side. It is the rough bits of life that seem to remind us of how much we care about each other. The difficulty that creates a story bigger than us. A beauty that binds us.