Useful Hands-On Group Activities

Directly useful manual activities carried out in a group make us happy. Because it is in useful, manual effort that we feel the most cohesion with others.

It is also the only way to really know someone. Confining ourselves to chatter does not allow us to truly know a person — what they have deep in their guts and deep in their heart. The smoothest talkers are not necessarily the trustworthy ones.

Less chatter.

Written messages exchanged via the many existing apps do not replace seeing others face to face. Especially when the messages are too short and misinterpreted.

We only really know a person well when we work alongside them at an activity that demands effort from us both — real labour. That is where we see how the other person tackles difficulties and reacts, what their behaviour is, their motivation, their will and their energy. It is in effort that we give the best of ourselves and show what we are capable of.

And what satisfaction, what happiness, to behold the work accomplished together, as a group, knowing that what we have just finished will be of service and directly useful.

This felt happiness is not present only at the end: it is present throughout the activity carried out as a group. It is a mixture of the organisation we set up among ourselves, the mutual aid in accomplishing difficult tasks, the suggestions and ideas for doing better. That feeling of being a tight-knit team capable of accomplishing anything. Nothing replaces such a feeling.

Let us rediscover our spirit of cohesion; let us act as a group through concrete, directly useful actions.

For example,

Land consolidation polluted our water: let us replant hedges (in French)

Planteurs d'avenir

Ecotree

Moreover, making ourselves useful to others increases the chances of receiving their support in case of difficulties.

And if we go as far as choosing a genuinely useful professional activity, such as feeding the population, we become part of those without whom no one survives: we will then be able to count on the population's support when it begins to feel hunger. From the moment yields are no longer sufficient to feed the population, we will also have no choice but for more and more of us to return to work in agriculture. The earlier we anticipate the organisation of food production without oil, and under a disrupted climate, the more this transition will take place in a climate of peace.

Wherever we are, there is another way to partly escape insecurity: being useful enough to others to be able to count on their support when hard times come.

Being useful enough to others to be able to count on their support when hard times come (in French)