Potluck
This past week NPR noted Maine’s movement of having Sunday potluck dinners. Sunday church potlucks were a part of my upbringing. Yeah, why doesn’t everybody do a weekly potluck at their church, community picnic at a park, at a senior center or daycare? Develop relationships and fight isolation via shared gatherings. Which might also lead to sharing talents, music, laughs, tears, skills, resources, repair tips, etc.
(https://www.npr.org/2025/04/12/nx-s1-5342502/a-communal-dining-initiative-in-maine-kicked-off-to-address-loneliness-is-thriving and https://www.communityplate.me/in-the-news)
Is sharing is the new wealth? (https://lovechangegrow.com/what-if-love-is-the-new-money/ ) Potlucks, picnics and tailgating are about sharing and developing relationships. It is a community creation of relationships and interactions which are direct and more healing than protest. I’m not saying protests are bad; they are necessary. But protest is a form or expression of awareness. However, the next stage after awareness is working for and creating better relationships.
Protest
Protests are a form or expression of awareness. However, the next stage after awareness is working at and creating better relationships and ways of being.
Over the past few years, the continued battles are of relationships. Algorithmic silos, economic inequality, and political polarization isolate people. People are seeking local connections because of isolation and desperation.
There are many forms of protest by acting locally. Examples include using cash, meeting neighbors, shopping locally, and buying from farmers’ markets. It is an opportunity to run into friends and making new friends. A discovery that neighbors who are also growing gardens, manufacturing goods and providing services. What local products escape the burdens of corporate debt and global conflicts?
In the Village of Hamsters
As my wife and I walked to the Saturday farmer’s market. The route included a political protest and a lively street market. And the farmer’s market, a simple village market, is very familiar to much of the world and our human history; it’s often considered the soul of the community. Part of the reason for going to the farmer’s market is that we run into friends. And this Saturday was no exception. We randomly got to catch up with a friend who now lives and works in NYC and hadn’t seen for 15 years… what a treat!
Another potential form of protest is using a community token. I had an idea while at the market: local communities could adopt decentralized blockchains. And start trading using a community token via blockchain tech. All it takes is a very simple technology of a wallet on your phone or some other hard wallet type device. The other requirements are having the faith (i.e., confidence) in the service or exchange relationship. Faith and confidence are a matter of experience and competence. If most street vendors used either cash (fiat currency) or a community token without cash value or a cash/nominal or other gold/commodity-backed value.
But is “anchored” in the relationship and the practice that it is and will work with others in your small community. It is essentially the story of the movie of “It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).” Historically, this is not a new idea. There were local and regional banks with their own currency before the “federal reserve note system” that began in 1913.
We can create community relationships without the overlord’s taxation and validation. A modern-day act of “Robin Hooding” does not matter what the token is. What matters is that the token requires your presence of faith in the relationship in one’s community. I.e., trading and sharing amongst folks in the community. We all have value. The issue is sharing our value. And in sharing we develop our community and our existence in the community.
Back to the community sharing token. If a community started a block chain token system with local community oversight, like a local non-profit credit union. If everyone in the community receives 100 tokens to use and share. It is merely a new community of relationships based on another form of recognizing value. However, the real value is in using it. And in using it, it creates a community, i.e. relationships in the community. We define the economy as the system of relationships and exchanges within a community. Forms of trading have been seashells, sticks, beads, gold, silver and fiat currencies.
Has someone deceived us into believing that scarcity creates value? But what creates value? Is value created in the use or utility? That is in the use is relationships and the application thereof. In economic terms, it is not money, but the velocity of money. The velocity of money is simply the use as in the number of “exchanges” that a dollar goes through in a certain time frame. The term “velocity” simply describes how many exchanges or trades a single dollar or token facilitate. Thus, as velocity increases it creates more value. Controllers skim profits, creating a “taxation without representation” issue.
Lubrication
Giving each community member 100 tokens is a lubrication to create sharing, trading to be used amongst the community. It is the volatility and subsequently increases value within the community and its members. It is not scarcity that creates inherent value. It is the relationship of trading, exchanging and sharing that creates value. It is the relationship with the mindset of abundance in the use, trade, and sharing of the abundance that creates value. From this standpoint, abundance and value are abundantly available as or as goods, services, and relationships. It does not have to be scarce.
Wealthy people owe their wealth to sharing. We all know a person who has died is beloved by their community and it’s not because of their money. It’s because of the relationships they have built over their lifetime. Their willingness to share what they have, to create with and in their community. Such the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens,” (1843).
In summary, opportunities are abundant, it is a matter of perspective and choosing to do something and then just do it. You never know what will happen unless you show up and give it a go.
Blessings,
Tim