Why Samenleving?

I've been struggling with a name for this site. I want to write about a topic that's dear to my heart: what it takes to make a society work. What it even means for a society to work. I chose "samenleving" because it's a word in another language that's constructed in a way that I like and that I think has very little meaning to the average English speaker. I happen to live in the Netherlands at the moment, but English is my mother tongue, and that is what I will use as the basis for my blog.

Samenleving is a Dutch word for society. It's the one that seems to show up where we Americans would use the term "society" in talking about, for example, "American society." I think it's a calque—a word constructed from germanic parts parallel to the latinate "society" so in a sense it's the same word, but to my non-Dutch ear it sounds like "same" and "living" (really it's more like "together living"). Did I mention my dad was a linguist? I'm not, and I can't even really channel him, but I have enough fond memories of discussing linguistics with him that the word and its origins spark joy. And also a bit of sadness, because I'd love to hear him correct me on my bad linguistics.

I took up Buddhism as a practice when I was in my late twenties, and it's carried me on a fairly long journey to a place that I think is not really particularly Buddhist, but certainly is informed by what I learned studying and practicing Buddhism. But it's also informed by the practices and actions of my Methodist grandmother, my probably spiritual but didn't talk about it mother, my atheist father, my Quaker ham radio mentor, my Catholic piano teacher, and many more.

I want to be clear about where this is coming from. I am not any sort of authority. I think a lot about philosophy, and about spirituality, religion, what it means to be a good person (or if that term is even a good term to use, but more on that later) and how societies can work and how they fail.

This is grounded in a Buddhist notion called "skillful behavior." This is a fairly common translation, but you'll hear other translations as well, none of which I love and none of which I will repeat here. This is parallel to the Christian notion of morality—I would go so far as to say they are talking about the same thing—but in Buddhism (and I think also in Christianity, but it's gotten lost in the noise) this is a practice, not a state of being. It's something you learn to do, and learn to get better at, and screw up a lot, and that's okay: the point is to try, and to have a methodology, not just a set of rules to follow (although rules are useful tools).

I want to share what I have learned, but not as an authority—just as a fellow traveler. If you read this and it sounds like you are interested, that's great. If you disagree with what I say, that's great—I'd prefer it if you could reason with me and not just tell me I'm wrong, but I am probably wrong, even if I'm also somewhat right sometimes, so it's good if you can point out how. That's one way that we can learn and grow.

I will probably refine this introduction later, but I wanted to set an intention. Let's see where it goes.