What It Would Be Like?

Last week I made the mistake of starting to watch a series without checking it out thoroughly in advance. Not necessarily a bad thing and only becomes a problem if you bump into something you don't like and this was the case with the series. It was the Midnight Mass an American series, categorized as drama, fantasy, horror, mystery.

Without wanting to look so full of myself, I think I deserve a medal as despite hating horror, I watched the mini-series till the end. Unfortunately (for them, not for me) it could not make me like horror and can't say it was good, but there was a detail in the series that made me think of a different life I am living now.

Photo by Olivier Collet on Unsplash

As the description on IMBD says, the story is about an isolated island community. When it says isolated island community, they mean a handful of people, less than 100 and it is clearly stated in the series as well so I was thinking what it would mean, or feel like, to live in such a small community.

The current city I am residing in has around 150k inhabitants, so I can't really say it's big and chances to bump into someone you know every single day is high, no matter where you go, what part of the city you visit. Still, you can close your door at home and have your private life as you wish, which is a huge advantage if you care about privacy. There's no dropping by unannounced, just to see what you're doing as these days visits must be agreed on. To small community members this may seem strange, but we all have our lives, routines and schedule and no one wants unexpected guests.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

When you live in a small place, where everyone knows everyone, your privacy goes out of the window the minute you move there. Wherever you go, whatever you do, everyone is going to find out about it rather sooner, than later. Some movies tend to present this specific case as living in a big, happy family, but we all know that could not be further from the truth.

I am always saying that those who don't have a private life, are living other people's life, meaning they gossip, interfere with other people's business, which is why sooner or later someone is going to make you do things you don't want, and stop you from doing things you want, as they think that's the custom or everyone does that. This is how slowly you lose your own way of life and live the life others want you to.

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash

It's quite difficult to live in a small community with the mindset you have after living in a city and most likely I could not get used to it. When I'm visiting my dad, sometimes it happens to meet locals (the handful I know there) and I'm happily chatting with them, but at some point you need to limit what you share with them, if you don't want to make the next hour news in the village, or end up in the bush radio, as gossip is called there.

It depends how you look at it, but for me, most likely it would feel like a prison you can't escape, unless you move or go away. Small communities, with all those secrets. My grandmother was an example in this regard, she was happy to learn every gossip in the village, from those who came to visit, but the biggest joy for her was the part when she distorted the gossips the way she wanted and passed them on to others. Needless to say, her credibility decreased in my eyes as soon as I old enough to be able to understand what this means.

Photo by Thierry Lemaitre on Unsplash

We have users from all around the world on Hive, people from cities with several millions of inhabitants, as well as villagers, who have never left their small village, so most likely opinions are divided on the topic, but I'd be happy to read about your experience and opinion on the matter.

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