In Bansko, Bulgaria, I book a room at the Grand Royal Hotel. Because when life hands you the chance to pretend you’re in a Wes Anderson movie, you take it.
While “grand” may be an overstatement, the hotel does house a pool, and not one but three saunas. My room has a balcony, and in the evening, the cool, mountainy breeze blows through the curtains. One’s stay at the Grand Royal includes an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, which features an extensive sweet and savoury selection, including a pastry table.
Also, since it’s summer and Bansko is a ski village, it’s cheap as hell.
I came to Bansko looking for a new home.
I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be in Turkey. There are more and less obvious reasons for this, which we’ll talk about another time. And the fact is that Bansko, or anywhere in Bulgaria, would be a temporary home, since I can’t stay here for more than 90 days out of 180. A lot of other EU countries fall into the same category, but I’m trying not to think about that for now.
Because right now, I am in Bansko, home to the densest population of digital nomads in the world.
Although, as Didi’s husband pointed out, anywhere that’s small enough and has a cafe in it could make the same claim.
There are actually five whole coliving spaces in Bansko. There’s an annual digital nomad festival here. And as I may have mentioned 500 or so times before in this substack, I’m hungry for community. What I haven’t mentioned is I’ve been looking for it, on and off, for a decade. It’s a search that took me to a meditation retreat centre in the middle of nowhere, New Zealand; to Perth, Australia; to Bali; and then back to Canada. And then to Turkey.
I sometimes feel like that bird in the kids’ book:
To which you might be thinking: that that’s a lot of places and a long time to be looking, Karneef. Perhaps the problem is you?
Perhaps it is.
The less luck I’ve had at finding that feeling of connection, aside from at retreat centres, which are not ideal for long-term residency, the more the unkind voice in my brain has tried to convince me that what I’m looking for doesn’t exist, or more to the point, isn’t important.
Community? Don’t be so woo-woo. You just need to earn lots of money. You just need to be successful. You just need to live somewhere beautiful. Community is a luxury. No one has it. What makes you think you’re any different?
Thankfully, as the years have passed, that voice has gotten less convincing.
Recommitting to recovery has been one reason. (As I’ve also repeated 500 or so times, connection is the opposite of addiction.) So have the Buddhist teachings. The Buddha said, in, like, Buddhism 101, that that having community—sangha—is just as important to liberation as the teachings themselves. My meditation teacher Derek has reminded me of this in almost every conversation we’ve had for the last 10 years.
I’m a slow learner.
But I’m finally convinced. Having people who understand you—people who you can call when your car breaks down, people who share your values on how to make the world a better place—is not a luxury, but a necessity. Perhaps the biggest necessity of all, aside from food, water, and safety.
Although isn’t suffering from a lack of food, water and safety a direct result of a lack of connection to each other?
Is it possible that the more separated we become, the easier it is to dehumanize each other, and believe that another living being does not deserve the necessities it takes to survive?
All I know is that since coming to Turkey almost three years ago, my most profound experiences have not been in beautiful places or ancient cities or trying amazing things. They’ve been when I experienced connection.
Bansko is not just a ski village, but a famous ski destination. This is made clear by street after street of almost carbon copy, Swiss-style condo buildings, with a couple of streets with restaurants and shops in the centre. I can liken it to Alpen version of a recently built Ontario suburb. Unfortunately, this is not a compliment.
You must be missing something, the unkind voice informs me.
I walk between the condos until I arrive at one of the coliving spaces. The owner is kind enough to take a few minutes to sit in the common area and chat.
“There’s something about Bansko,” he tells me, as we lean against the bar. “People say, ‘I’m coming for a month!’ Six months later, they say, ‘I will leave one day!’”
See? The problem is you.
I nod, encouraging him to go on.
He tells me about the nearby spa town, and the many hiking groups and varied organized activities. Also the skiing, which, he explains, is most suited to advanced or professional skiers, which I definitely am not. I can only imagine how incredible it would be to ski here. The mountains are next to godlike.
I walk home, determined to give Bansko a chance.
For the next few days, aside from testing the different saunas in my hotel and eating too many mini chocolate croissants, I wander this way and that around the town. The food is good, although there are more burgers and pizzas and fewer Bulgarian dishes. The air smells incredible. On local facebook pages I see public speaking nights and dance nights and movie nights.
But something still feels not right.
What am I missing?
The night before I leave, I call Derek. A propos of something else entirely, he mentions a line our root teacher, Namgyal Rinpoche, once said while teaching.
“You all think you’re supposed to love cocktail parties,” Rinpoche said. “But actually, you all hate them. And you feel like there’s something wrong with you for that.”
I laugh.
I’m going to take the liberty to clarify that Rinpoche gave this teaching in the eighties. For him, the term cocktail party suggested a gathering of folks making small talk and distracting themselves from reality. He wasn’t referring to real, meaningful conversations, or even the sharing of drinks.
But to me, cocktail parties are not just events, but places.
Aside from the language I hear occasionally in the streets of Bansko, I could be anywhere with mountains. It feels like a place constructed solely to make money, where people can escape reality. Like a beautiful beach that’s been built up with hotels and bars and carpeted with chaise longes. Or the many parts of Bali that have been swallowed by burger joints and strips of nightclubs. Or a lot of my home country.
Or the coffee shop in Fethiye where I’m writing this, where a kombucha costs 1/6 of the daily minimum wage.
When a place is not integrated with the land that it’s built on and the people who have been living on it since well before tourists and expats “digital nomads” showed up, that—for me—is a cocktail party.
I know this is going to piss some people off. And no doubt, one person’s cocktail party is another person’s connection. And yes, some cocktail parties offer the possibility for real connection.
But my gut is screaming: Bansko is not for me.
And finally, I’m listening to my gut.
The night after I leave Bulgaria, the IDF bombs Beirut, the city where my father was born and raised. The place I’ve dedicated the past several years to making a film about.
I stay up into the early morning, scrolling instagram posts and live updating news, and praying. Like many, I’m terrified that things will escalate. I can’t stop think about my family there; my colleagues and friends and their families. How they must be feeling. What could happen to them.
I’m also uncomfortably aware that if things were fair and equal, I should have not slept for the past 300 days. Or, really, ever.
I hate it that it takes things getting closer to home to amplify our care.
But that’s why we need connection.
Margaret Mead said for 40,000 years human civilization's main building block was the small group, 12-20 people. The tribe. She added that it's only in times of famine, war, social breakdown it becomes the 2-4 person family unit.
Or, in many cases these days, fewer than that.
How many of us know our neighbours first names, never mind feel a sense of community and care where we live?
How much harder is it to swim against the stream of capitalism and dehumanization when you don’t have any buddies to do it with?
How privileged am I that I even have the option of searching for this?
Very.
And so, the search continues.
Do you feel a strong sense of community where you live (or are currently unpacked)?
How do you combat isolation?
Do you have any thoughts on this?
I’d love to hear them in the comments!
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These are super questions....how to find community and combat isolation. At 82, I'd say I have a fair bit of experience in this search. I can now say that I have a beloved group of friends scattered about in the 100 km. radius that I have lived in for half a century. A few of them live in my same little town. With all these folks, I fit in, and we can talk endlessly about things that are important to us. A few of them have moved to other provinces or countries. And we keep in touch by phone, email, and Zoom. Not perfect but pretty darn good because we share history and that goes a looooong way. For me, finding these soul-mates took years and decades. And for that, I had to be more or less in the same location for years/decades. Otherwise, how could I have gotten to really and deeply know who were my "besties?" Plus within my small town, I feel a sense of general community, because there are many groups and organizations doing what they can to help other citizens of the town -- and I pitch in there when I can. The last decade I have been living in a small apartment building which is an unexpectedly delightful community. Here I've made several friends with folks I otherwise would never have chosen to hang out with. It's taught me a lot about being a good neighbour. I am sure there are many experiences of finding community out there, and I look forward to hearing comments from others on how they have done that -- or are doing it. Thanks for asking :) xoxoxoxo
So late to comment. Happily just nc l involved with my new(ish) life and home. But need to mention I always love to read your stuff.