Laurence Freeman OSB: Why do we need to reflect on this theme? You would have thought that it's such a basic human need. I think it's because we've lost it. We've lost this experience of conviviality, which is the title of the first of the talks which I'll be giving: How to live together, conviviality in a vital and vivacious way. And we have, in many ways, been responsible for creating this breakdown of community, of conviviality, because of our individualism. Our technology, of course, produces incredible individualism. It's my phone, it's my password, and nobody can see my password and so on. So individualism has become rampant and it undermines the very nature of living together. And at the personal level, we can see that in the breakdown of relationships, the breakdown of, breakup of marriages, the reluctance to make the commitment that is necessary in order to live together. But we can also see it at the level of sectarianism and the polarisation that has come to characterise our different political and cultural, religious and ethnic perspectives. So, whether it's at the individual level, the communal level, or the global level, we are facing the same dangers. Individualism, sectarianism, isolation, and even our discovery of our right. To have a special identity. Whether that is sexual or political or artistic or whatever, even that recognition of our right to be who we are can become something exclusive, and we become fixated upon our own special identity as more important than other people's special identity. So this is why we think that this theme is so important and for us today as contemplative, living also as contemporaries, with a responsibility. A personal, social, and spiritual responsibility to our time. And this challenge affects people of every age group. We see it in very young children today. We see the rise of mental illness, the dependency upon technology, the loss of personal contact, and we see it in middle age, people going through a middle age crisis, they seem to go through it earlier and earlier. But younger people, young adults. And of course we see it in elderly people too after retirement. What is the meaning of my life and what have I achieved at a meaningful level? So, this risk that we have to learn how to recognise and embrace affects every age group.
