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Thoughts on Community
Had some conversation about community with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gipsieee over the weekend, and came to some conclusions that, while I don't particularly like them, I think I can probably live with them. Conclusions may be too strong a word. Stopping point from which I can look further later might be better ^_^
Part of the challenge of this is that whole semantic thing again. I wrote in the past asking for thoughts on a word to describe people who were close--in some cases very close--but didn't want to use the words 'family' or 'tribe' or 'clan' or such. Upon further reflection, I believe the reason those words don't feel quite right for what I was trying to describe is that for me they all imply that the people included in them have interwoven relationships. I was looking for something that didn't necessarily have those connotations. What I got was the word 'kin' which, for whatever reason, does not have those ties for me.
However, that sort of model cuts both ways. It can lend itself well to some very strong ties to people who don't know each other, and/or who would not get along well at all. However, especially in the case of the latter, it makes it very difficult to get a sense of community.
This, in turn, has led me to wonder whether my sense of community is different than other peoples', because when I see what they are talking about when they use the word, it doesn't match up with what I think of when I use the word. When I use it, I think of a group of people with common passions who (mostly) all know each other, get along reasonably well (the majority of the time), and are generally inclusive towards other people in that community. What I usually see when people use this word, however, looks more like an illusion of this. On the surface it appears that they have common passions and know each other and get along reasonably well (and maybe even are inclusive), but upon closer examination I almost always get the feeling that they're all pretending for each other, to various degrees. Or that I am in a different reality that my body apparently transcends but that my mind is separated from, at best by a thin veil, at worst by heavy velvet drapery.
Which isn't to say that I'm completely cut off; fortunately I have found some people who are in the same reality that I am... or who can transcend to mine, or into whose I can transcend.
And maybe that's the way that everybody experiences it, and that's exactly what they mean when they say "community", but that's not the impression that I get and even if it is the case I don't think it's what I want to mean when I say community and if that is what community means then I need to find a new word to represent what, up to this point, I have been using that word for.
I'm really tempted to write things like this off as out of balance neurotransmitters, except that that doesn't really work, I think... it's more like it is always like this, but it just bothers me less when things are in balance. So if I just wait, it should get back to that point. But I'm not sure that I want to do that, because damn times like this suck.
gipsieee over the weekend, and came to some conclusions that, while I don't particularly like them, I think I can probably live with them. Conclusions may be too strong a word. Stopping point from which I can look further later might be better ^_^Part of the challenge of this is that whole semantic thing again. I wrote in the past asking for thoughts on a word to describe people who were close--in some cases very close--but didn't want to use the words 'family' or 'tribe' or 'clan' or such. Upon further reflection, I believe the reason those words don't feel quite right for what I was trying to describe is that for me they all imply that the people included in them have interwoven relationships. I was looking for something that didn't necessarily have those connotations. What I got was the word 'kin' which, for whatever reason, does not have those ties for me.
However, that sort of model cuts both ways. It can lend itself well to some very strong ties to people who don't know each other, and/or who would not get along well at all. However, especially in the case of the latter, it makes it very difficult to get a sense of community.
This, in turn, has led me to wonder whether my sense of community is different than other peoples', because when I see what they are talking about when they use the word, it doesn't match up with what I think of when I use the word. When I use it, I think of a group of people with common passions who (mostly) all know each other, get along reasonably well (the majority of the time), and are generally inclusive towards other people in that community. What I usually see when people use this word, however, looks more like an illusion of this. On the surface it appears that they have common passions and know each other and get along reasonably well (and maybe even are inclusive), but upon closer examination I almost always get the feeling that they're all pretending for each other, to various degrees. Or that I am in a different reality that my body apparently transcends but that my mind is separated from, at best by a thin veil, at worst by heavy velvet drapery.
Which isn't to say that I'm completely cut off; fortunately I have found some people who are in the same reality that I am... or who can transcend to mine, or into whose I can transcend.
And maybe that's the way that everybody experiences it, and that's exactly what they mean when they say "community", but that's not the impression that I get and even if it is the case I don't think it's what I want to mean when I say community and if that is what community means then I need to find a new word to represent what, up to this point, I have been using that word for.
I'm really tempted to write things like this off as out of balance neurotransmitters, except that that doesn't really work, I think... it's more like it is always like this, but it just bothers me less when things are in balance. So if I just wait, it should get back to that point. But I'm not sure that I want to do that, because damn times like this suck.
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On "community", I think part of the problem is that the word is used very nonchalantly. It's kind of everywhere, and people use it when they want to describe a group of people who have one thing (usually) in common. And it's not usually a very deep thing that links these people together. It's things like living in a general area, or an interest in sci-fi or anthropomorphic artwork. This doesn't really engender the feeling that there is a deeply connected community. To be fair, I think of what you describe community as is more of the ideal. In actuality, community doesn't mean much anymore except that people share something in common. Least, that's my opinion. ^^ I just strive to surround myself with people who are interesting and fun. Hope I've made some sort of sense. ^^'
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