Community
Mo Shafieeha and
Community
Ultimately, Agreements are a collective wish we make about how we might be in the same space together. That space could be a classroom, a sports team, a club, a conference, committees or boards, an organizing group. They reflect what we need to participate while feeling joyful, trusted, and brave.
But they also can be flimsy as hell.
But they also can be flimsy as hell.
Elise Granata • The Occasional Flimsiness of Group Agreements
Tara McMullin and
I say you have to learn how to be with and a part of something in order to know how to be alone. I think it is only out of a deep anchoring in community that one can ever be free to explore the solitary.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
I don’t think technology alone can fix that. It takes people who care about other people. Caring, I think, is the one thing that cannot be outsourced or automated. We can certainly create the illusion of care, and that illusion might be better than nothing for someone who has none, but ultimately I hope everyone gets access to people who care about
... See moreNot everyone who joined a bowling league (when people did such things) loved bowling. Many loved being with other people first and bowling came second or not at all. Being together is what mattered. The venue did not.
Yancey Strickler • The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet
Humans have always known we cannot survive alone, and that to protect ourselves, we need to persuade others to care about us. We cultivate trusting reciprocal pacts with other people – blood relatives, but also friends and neighbours - through which reassure ourselves we can both care and be cared for, if the necessity strikes. These ties can have... See more
Zooming out: great communities, in the traditional sense, required limited options so people would remain dependent: no specialists or external trade (to ensure we all collectively worked together), and no diversity or weird ideas (to ensure a homogenous group with a focus on tradition). We had far worse medical treatment, underwent excruciating manual labor, and didn’t necessarily share the same interests with others, but because we were dependent on each other, the bonds were strong. Now the options are virtually limitless, and we’re seeing our social bonds decay as a result.