Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field - I’ll meet you there

Communities come in many forms.

A little over a year ago, my friend Phill asked if I wanted to join two of his friends (and one of their friends) in a five-person group simply called Music Friends. Naturally, being a music nerd, I jumped at the chance.

The setup is simple. In a WhatsApp group, each of us has an assigned day of the week. On our day, we share an album we love or find interesting, along with a short note about what it means to us.

Through this, we get to discover music we’ve never heard before, or revisit albums we already treasure — and in those moments, we get to share that spark with someone who feels the same way.

I’ve never met three of the others in person. For someone like me — a child of the ’80s with only a mild fondness for the virtual world — that makes it a unique kind of community. But communities come in many forms, and this one has become a quiet highlight of my week.

A song, a poem, a field beyond right and wrong
This morning, Andrew shared First Mind by Nick Mulvey — a beautiful album I’ve loved for years. A dear friend once told me they know Nick personally and described him as a beautiful human being, which made the music feel even richer. I hadn’t listened to it in a while, and hearing it again took me straight back to my favourite track on the album: Meet Me There, inspired by a Rumi poem.

Just forty-two words, written over eight centuries ago, yet still holding a message so essential and so pure, it feels like a quiet key to a better world:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

In a group of “Music Friends,” where the shared bond is a deep, unapologetic love of music, it would be easy to fall into debates about what’s good or bad. You only need to browse any subreddit dedicated to a beloved artist to see how quickly shared passion can turn into arguments. People come together for love of the music, but a surprising amount of energy gets spent tearing apart other people’s tastes. Sometimes amusing, often sad.

But in our little group, that never happens. This community isn’t about proving your taste or winning the argument. It’s about sharing what moves you.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe community, at its best, is simply the space where we meet each other beyond the right and wrong of things — in the field, in the music, in the listening.

One example of the chaos:

From the subreddit, “WestSubEver"

This morning, Andrew shared First Mind by Nick Mulvey — a beautiful album I’ve loved for years. A dear friend once told me they know Nick personally and described him as a beautiful human being, which made the music feel even richer. I hadn’t listened to it in a while, and hearing it again took me straight back to my favourite track on the album: Meet Me There, inspired by a Rumi poem.

Just forty-two words, written over eight centuries ago, yet still holding a message so essential and so pure, it feels like a quiet key to a better world:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

In a group of “Music Friends,” where the shared bond is a deep, unapologetic love of music, it would be easy to fall into debates about what’s good or bad. You only need to browse any subreddit dedicated to a beloved artist to see how quickly shared passion can turn into arguments. People come together for love of the music, but a surprising amount of energy gets spent tearing apart other people’s tastes. Sometimes amusing, often sad.

But in our little group, that never happens. This community isn’t about proving your taste or winning the argument. It’s about sharing what moves you.

Carrying the same energy into everyday life
That’s why it’s such a joy to be part of a space where, once a day, I get to experience the music someone else loves — with nothing but an open mind and genuine curiosity for what matters to them. That, to me, is community. And community, at its best, is joy.

It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about sharing something that carries meaning, even if it’s not your taste. Of course, some albums don’t quite land. But that’s part of the fun. I love how two people’s musical Venn diagram can overlap almost entirely, yet still contain entire genres, or specific albums, that never cross paths.

Imagine if we could carry that same energy into all the communities we belong to: where we live, where we work, where we govern. Our town centres. Our trains. And maybe the place of peak chaos… our roads.

I’ll leave you with a final line of Rumi, and a reminder of why joy has always bee, and will always be, the foundation of building a better world:

For we live in the kingdom of joy. Do not give your heart to anything else but to the love of those who are clear joy. Do not stray into the neighbourhood of despair.

Thank you for reading, take care, and good luck with everything you’re focused on.

Benjamin

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