a thread for a community

In the history of the world, revolutions have rarely ever begun without several people realizing the same thing(s) and acting upon that revelation. And in our day and age, this hasn’t changed. People form clusters centred on a shared idea, understanding or belief.

You, the readers of this blog, whether you agree or disagree with what I write, are a cluster…a distinct grouping participating in the discourse I am presenting. In that sense, you are a community. The root of the word ‘community’ is ‘common’. This can be understood as people, who have something in common, coming together – in unity…common-unity!

But it seems that strong communities are far from common these days. Healthy communities are rare and our understanding of their importance has been demoted. The new generation is growing accustomed to a community born and nurtured in cyber space. And whether or not that is positive must be asked by other people.

I would like to question how the deterioration of community has come about. And, as sad as it is true, it starts with the individual.

Each individual has learned his own way of perceiving the world around him. Some tend to be outward-looking whereas others focus on the interior. There are also those that find a balance between the two. We hardly every realize how our own body is made up of different communities itself. The senses are our community of perception. Yet, how often do we embrace each one of them and use it consciously?

Recently, there was a sweltering heat where I live and I decided to go to the lake. While I was swimming, I listened to my breathing…felt the cool water on my skin…heard different sounds…tasted the humid air hovering above the surface…saw the sunlight shimmering on the ripples my movements caused…and smelled that strange mixture of heat impacting on the wet pieces that fell into the lake from the trees. Then I glanced into the distance and saw a huge, dark blanket of clouds slowly moving towards me.

A massive storm was brewing and I returned to the shore to head back home. However, nobody else appeared to notice the storm and it was quite confusing. Why wouldn’t you see the clouds and decide to get away?

Natural disasters tend to have one positive outcome: they draw people together to form a community in which everybody helps one another. It was seen with the recent floods in Germany. Often we don’t see the storm before it is too late. And perhaps we require a storm every now and then to make us realize what we have and how it is vital to stick together!

Sometimes we must focus on the big things, to appreciate the small things. It is certainly based on an individual’s experience.

People are different. And too often it is hard to accept that somebody else does or believes something else from you. There are those that walk, those that cycle and those who drive a car. With each form of transport, we discover different things.

When you walk, you take in more ‘stuff’…you can listen to birds, see things right in front of you, turn around and have a 360 degree angle of the world. But you won’t get to your destination as quickly. You compromise getting to the finishing line faster for the experience.

When you drive, you pass the world in high-speed. Whatever you discover ends up behind you just as fast. Unless you stop, of course. And when you take your eyes off the road, you are risking a dangerous outcome. Unless you drive slowly, of course. You must pay attention to other drivers and have to conform to a set of rules. You will get to the finishing line faster than anybody else – but at what cost? And when you get there, will you regret experiencing more on the journey?

When you cycle, it appears to be the best of both worlds. Fast, but not too fast. You experience enough and you can take your eyes off the road without major problems.

None of the above is better than the other. Our mode of transportation translates into life as the journey we choose to be on. Each day, we make the choice on how to commute through life. The word ‘commute’ has several meanings:

1.       Change, alter

2.       To give in exchange for another

3.       To convert (as a payment) into another form

As individuals, we change throughout the day…we go through moods; we have thoughts, ideas, and do certain things. We give something of ourselves in return for something, be it substantial or trivial. It’s still something. We pay and convert our seconds, minutes and hours of life into experiences; treasured, remembered or forgotten. We build up our community of memories.

Last but not least, each revolution is steeped in how we communicate with each other. And recently, I re-watched the film ‘Matilda’, based on the story written by Roald Dahl. It is a beautiful tale about a young girl who lives with a family that doesn’t care about her and she decides to teach herself how to read. Roald Dahl was probably concerned with the growing influence of television on a new, young generation. The family doesn’t interact, but rather sits in front of the TV whilst eating dinner.

Growth begins with nurturing. And communication plays an important role in nurturing a human-being. Kids grow up learning how to interact with the world from their parents. Hence, parents have the most difficult job, because they are preparing the members of our community. This responsibility must be fathomed before one decides to have children. You can have many kids, but with each one of them you only get one shot at doing it right! And one foul apple in the batch makes all the others taste bad.

Here in Germany, they want to push for full-day schools in every region. Why? Because parents are both employed and no longer have the time necessary to take care of their kids. It makes little sense to me to have children and at an age, when they need parents the most, to push them away. Our family is the first community we learn from and get an understanding of how the world should work. Too often, we are victims of a dysfunctional family and the actual community, that ought to help us, has too many rotten apples to deal with in the first place. It’s not a vicious circle. It is a vicious spiral…that is never ending if you don’t make a clean cut and start afresh.

All of us have our part to play in re-shaping and re-forming the community we want to live in. And even if you simply bring about that realization in a person close to you, the closer we will get to bringing back the feeling of ‘togetherness’…because life is the common thread binding us in unity.