Community

 We gather together as people and build social structures around ourselves. We stack discussion, shared ideas, mutual beliefs and cooperative goal setting on top of each other to create a nest, a home, a tribe. This has been a human experience that travels back beyond recorded memory. At one point in our collective story as a species, to be in the group was to be warm, fed and protected. To be out of the group was to be exposed; alone and doomed. 
 
The world has shifted. Admittance into the literal social cave is no longer essential. There is still however a powerful attraction to exist within a group and to draw on the resources of communities to enrich and support our lives.
 
 
Potential for positive impact
 
The power of community is that the needs of each individual can be provided for beyond their own capacity. The joy of community is that each life becomes enriched by the complexities and successes of those it is intertwined with. The potential of community is that the collective agency of many members of a group all surging towards similar goals can generate impressive achievements.
 
When struck by challenge the ability of individuals to lean on the resources and support of other community members creates a safety net, increasing resilience and leading to improved prosperity for the whole. 
 
During life’s journey the companionship, wisdom and encouragement of a tolerant community can provide enjoyment, stimulation and perspective as each person strives for a valuable existence.
 
Groups can inspire us to battle for change and achievement, and they can be the reserve source of energy each individual can mobilise in the pursuit of a worthy goal.
 
 
Potential for negative impact
 
The risk of community is that an individual’s needs can be usurped by the needs and ideals of the group. Through ossified structures that perhaps have failed to adjust to new and changing realities there is potential for community beliefs and behaviours to no longer represent the values of its members. 
 
The nature of individual thought is that it can be flexible and reflective of specific and detailed events. Groups are inherently less able to shift quickly when presented with new information and stimulus. 
 
The group’s energy may go to indoctrinating their members into maintaining status quo beliefs, rather than encouraging active thought and genuine consideration when presented with issues and decisions. 
 
 
The challenge
 
When considering our communities it is important to ensure that the structures we build provide for the positive potential of groups rather the negatives. It seems important to strive to:

• Create interconnected collections of people that provide support, joy and powerful resources that reflect, rather than restrict the thoughts and beliefs of individuals.

• Develop groups that demand members become considered and critical thinkers and not indoctrinated perpetuators of ideas and beliefs. 

• Foster communities that are able to maintain the flexibility to shift and adapt alongside a frequently modifying world. 

 
 
The real value of community
 
Importantly, the value of community does not come from the specific details of the majority beliefs, despite these beliefs often being the most easily identifiable component of a group, and potentially the reason we connect with others in the first place and form communities. 
 
It is possible, even, to detach the factors and labels that easily describe a community, from the vital and important function that community provides. 
 
And it is not the overt surface layer characteristics of groups that bind and provide value. It is the deep fundamental actions of community that host the true value. The often unarticulated shared intention to care for group members when they suffer. The mutual ability to be enriched through the sharing of success. The source of the impetus and the resources to strive for action and achievement. 
 
When considering the communities we live in it seems central that we critically evaluate the true values and benefits of our groups. 

• It is solidarity and reflected joy that matter … not that everyone happens to support the blue team instead of the red team. 

• It is the fact that if help is required it will come … not that everyone dresses the same and chooses the same side in an argument. 

• It is that together the brilliant ideas of a few can grow beyond their origins to create positive change in the world …not that what was once right and has always been done is continued. 

 
 
The interpersonal connections that populate our lives with support, achievement and joy should be appreciated, and the communities that provide these connections celebrated. 
 
The challenge, and therefore the opportunity, exists in letting go of the potentially distracting layers of conformity and rigidity which can arise in groups, and ensuring our communities are admired for their core, universal elements. 

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