Category: Community

Is it that we have to draw ourselves together in groups? As if, our concept of identity not quite able to stretch to the broadest sense of “human”, we need some interim place to feel we belong. Maybe it’s simply “true” that we need more accessible, manageable groupings within that larger body of humanity; in that we can’t quite imagine our place in life without such dividing lines between us.

Often, it just seems like new forms of nationalism – new interests, concerns, beliefs or practices that bind us toward those “like us”, as distinct from all those who think differently. As if, that old form of belonging breaking up, our psyches seek something to replace it, some new raft to cling to in the churning sea of other people.

Why is it, though, that we only seek to gather together with those like us? As if humanity’s something to be broken apart, sorted by type, arranged, categorised, and related to on that basis. The brain, perhaps, having been trained to see things that way: deconstructing reality into groups of what’s alike and what’s not. This tendency to notice differences and make them definitive.

Maybe, in some way, it’s because it allows “progress”? This notion of bringing together those with similar interests, concerns or experiences so as to work through, understand, dig deep, and develop theories or solutions in any particular area. Identity almost as these focus groups of those drawn toward similar issues; having had them brought to life through individual biography, personality or inclination.

In terms of personal or collective development, there must be value in such focussed conversation: that individually lived, communally felt concern over the value of certain things and the imperfection in how society’s approaching them. Almost as if we’re all grouping together around everything that could conceivably matter to humanity – clarifying problems, drawing them into focus, and demanding they be acknowledged.

To what extent are those distinct areas of interest able to co-exist, though? Are boundaries accommodating or aggressive? If each concern or identity is as a circle, can they overlap or dissolve to somehow merge into the broader, more inclusive area of shared interest? As with nations, it often seems we’re more inclined to fight over points of difference than agree over common ground or principles.

Maybe, in part, it’s that humanity’s challenge is to relate to those we see as different? To use groupings or identities as points of focus, then find ways to compassionately work alongside those drawn to other issues, concerns or experiences. As if what’s always been needed is that larger space or circle within which we can all express ourselves with mutual interest, recognition and respect.

Not to say any of that’s anything like easy, especially with identity dialled up as strongly as today, but where are we without it? If we’re not to fall back on divisions and conflicts similar to those experienced in the past, maybe we’re simply needing new ways to mediate the spaces between us.

Notes and References:

Threads, becoming a united whole
Nothing short of everything
Seeing where others are coming from
Humans, judgement & shutting down
What inspires collective endeavours
Authenticity & writing our own story
Rich complexity of human being
Bringing things into awareness
Do we live in different worlds?
Can each be true to themselves?

As humans, is it simply that we’re born into the world as it stands? Absorbed into this world of thought manifest through the systems we stand within and ideas being spun around it. All this nested meaning which we take in, make our own and move forward one way or another. As if life’s simply this world of thoughts and their consequences, working themselves out through us, as the environment we’ve all stepped into.

This sense in which we, as thinking beings, arrive in a world we might try to understand – a world that asks we take it up in thought, accept its ideas and structure our lives within it. How can we do otherwise? If thought’s in our nature it must mean we would apply it in how we live our lives, individually as much as collectively. That “being human” might mean living from the level of thought.

Don’t we find meaning through social relationships, artefacts and infrastructure? All the details of our lives somehow conveying to us the sense of how “we” feel it best to be living – the values, priorities, activities, conversations deemed worthwhile in sustaining what’s needed from either the personal or communal level. “What life is” speaking to us out of all that we do.

Almost as if “that” is the picture we build in our minds: all the details of everyday life, culture and the media melding into a shared sense of what life’s about and all that matters within our community. That, in thought, everything converges to form our understanding of what it is to be human and all the functions sustaining our lives. Isn’t it all necessary? All part and parcel of fulfilling genuine human needs.

It seems such an intriguing picture: that we would all be born into a world of ideas we take up and make our own. That, the world over, we’re all absorbed into various interlocking worlds of meaning that increasingly jut against one another, jostling for space. That to be human is, perhaps, to be acclimatised to a certain way of thinking about reality – one of many distinct configurations of “how to live”.

On the small scale, perhaps our ideas would match the location in which the details of our lives played out, creating a tangible picture reflected in the mind of each individual. These days, it’s all become so vast, so hidden and deconstructed, that the idea of piecing together a realistic sense of “what life is” sometimes seems impossible – as if we live in a world of strangers, unable to see what we mean to each other.

Still, there must be a delicate balance within it all? That reciprocal relationship between all we do and how it affects others – the meaning of our actions. Isn’t that, in a way, what life “is”? Understanding, in thought, all that we’re doing and all that it means. Seeing all the ways our personal needs or desires come together in this collective network spanning all the spaces between us.

Notes and References:

What does community mean?
Can our thinking match realities?
Life as adjustments in meaning
Holding back, for the sake of others
Culture, thought & coexistence
Deepening understanding
Somewhere between ideals & realities
Learning all we need to know
Seeing what things mean

Is it possible to be sociable while you’re alone? Wouldn’t it almost be existing in a bubble of our own projection? Any connectedness or relationship only, perhaps, a figment of our imagination. Not that it “has” to be that way, but don’t our own thoughts have a tendency to occupy our minds a lot more than anything else?

Increasingly it seems we might live within realities of our own making – caught up in the narrative of our own personal movie, where each of us is the leading character and star of the show. As if “everything else” simply plays whatever role we’ve cast it in our storyline, rather than having an independent existence in its own right. This sense in which “life” is what we make of it: what we believe things mean for and about us.

Perhaps, as self-conscious beings, we have little choice? Naturally, our point of view seems likely to be our own: our situation, our concerns, our path, our relationships, our interests, our struggles, our feelings. The mind – the mental space – serving “us” by orienting everything else in relation to our own existence and understanding.

That we live in our own consciousness, our own perceptions and interpretations of their meaning, while the world, refracted through that lens, becomes our own version of events. In that, how much can we ever really know anyone else? Get past our own idea of “who they are” to meet with the reality of another being who’s just as complex as us.

Given the depth of human experience, how are we to go beyond that surface and create a sense of “who someone is” that’s flexible yet realistic enough to withstand any tendency to label, reduce or oversimplify the fluidity of all anyone actually is? Or, overcome our perhaps equally natural inclination to mainly view others in relation to ourselves: who they are to us, how much we have in common, or what we could gain.

Sometimes it seems we’re in perpetual competition over who gets to speak, to exist, within social interactions. As if we’re barely listening while we wait for the chance to be heard. As if others are only allowed as much space as we are in this strange balance sheet of mutual appreciation or mutual suppression. Maybe it’s simply hard to let another version of reality exist in our presence? Especially if we’re not entirely alike.

Communication and relationship can start to seem increasingly complicated, given how much our ideas and identities matter to us all. How, then, are we to truly know who others are? Get beyond our idea of them to flesh out that flattened image of their living personality. Let the past go to leave space for what’s happening now to emerge before our eyes. Don’t we all seek recognition? To be known by others.

It just seems, especially with technology, that we’re often thrown back into our own minds and ideas; leaving less and less room for seeing people as they really are.

Notes and References:

Can “how we relate” really change?
Might we lose our social muscles?
These ideas we have of one another
Giving others space to be
Words & relating as paths to change
What does it mean to be tolerant?
Do we live in different worlds?
Ways of being & what’s getting left out
Can each be true to themselves?

Does society need us to believe in it? To believe that we’re valued, not just materially but also personally – that our lives are important and everything going on within them plays vital roles in sustaining or enriching the life of our community. This sense in which all that we do feeds into this vast, convoluted tapestry of our shared lives together; everything mattering and meaning something at the points it inevitably hits home.

Almost as if society might benefit from us believing our presence was valuable and made all the difference. That we weren’t replaceable, interchangeable masses so much as individuals making their own unique contributions through every little thing that we do. That those around us care deeply about our wellbeing, everyday experiences, and all we’re undertaking for the sake of the whole. That everything “counts”.

Equally, perhaps, “we” need to believe our lives hold meaning. That, despite no one seeing or noticing, all the details of our daily existence matter for how they make us feel and for the ways they serve to uphold the many threads that go into making up “society”. Invisible as those ties and connections may be, what are we doing if it’s not somehow helping our lives run more smoothly?

Community may be something seemingly arbitrary – something we’re born into without perhaps asking, while those around us perhaps never asked that we’re here – but isn’t that its very nature? That it’s something emerging from the sum of its parts; something essentially constructed and held together by the sense we have of belonging and the needs which arise from humans living together and sharing the load.

How is that relationship to work if we don’t believe we belong or believe our participation matters? If we’re thinking that no one cares, nobody notices and nothing we do ultimately makes a difference then what kinds of life will we lead? If we’re thinking “all this” is simply some twisted joke where we might give of our time, energy and intention but be treated only as invisible cogs in the machine then how would we feel?

Isn’t this a relationship that needs, in some way, to be warm? That we’d feel ourselves engaged in something meaningful and purposeful yet also heartfelt – all our disparate activities coming together in a crescendo to forge the appreciative embrace of people mutually providing all that’s needed as best we’re able. Each person playing their part, offering their all, and taking only what they truly require.

Often, though, it’s seeming strangely cold and transactional: as if we’re all arranged in detached independence fulfilling the obligations of some loosely defined contract while yelling at others to do the same. Each person perhaps mainly being valued on the basis of qualities that are so largely determined by circumstances quite beyond our control. As if we really were all just anonymous, replaceable entities.

What is the “right” picture to have in mind about our ties to one another and the value of our collective efforts?

Notes and References:

How would we like to live?
Lacking the human side of community?
Valuing people more
What does community mean?
Rich complexity of human being
Understanding what we’re all part of
Integrity and integration

If we had the choice, how would we really “like” to live? Would it really be a case of, somehow, escaping society to live lives of luxury completely devoid of meaningful connections with our kind? This “winning the lottery” notion of rising above our peers to enjoy all life’s pleasures with none of the engagement. Attractive as that may sound, how fulfilling would such a life actually be?

Sometimes it seems we’ve just spun a life for ourselves that almost everyone’s striving to be free of – as if we’ve made everything such a struggle, needing to elbow others out the way in the hope of ensuring there’s enough for us (Notes One). A life where we’re mainly seeking peace from the conversations and interactions we’re obliged to have; where “the dream” is to detach and not need to deal with one another.

Isn’t the apex of it all the hope of being in the position to retreat and have others do your bidding? Everyone agreeing with you for fear of your displeasure and the power you might wield or withdraw. Money, of course, being the main means of control. As if we’re all fighting for control, for the capacity to be free of having to negotiate with this system and all those within it. Freedom to be ourselves.

What does it mean, though, if society’s filled with people hoping to be free of it? Like the crabs trying to claw their way out of the bucket. Why is social life something we might seek to escape? As if we created systems that motivate us by fear of our inadequacy or vulnerability; a place we need to perpetually watch out for the next challenge or trend to stay abreast of if we’re not to fall behind.

As if “society” is designed to work against us, capitalising on our humanity to drive us forward for its own ends. Each person striving to tread water within its rising, swirling tides. As if “that” spurs us on to give all we have to get ahead, make the most of things, and ultimately “survive” within it all. “Life” as this battle, this current we’re born into and must swim against to prove our worth (Notes Two).

Do we need fear in order to strive? Does it really bring out the best in people? Might there not be another vision that could motivate us more compassionately? Some constructive sense of how we might come together, offer all we have, and feel appreciated for our valuable contributions toward harmonious coexistence within a finite space. (Notes Three)

Just because we “are” motivated by insecurities, does that make it wise to structure society around them? Placing us all in this fight for the power to elbow “others” out of our way. It seems so limiting, this notion of scarcity and lack that drives us to compete. Fear may be our greatest motivator, useful for pushing “society” furthest ahead, but could we not, instead, work out of love for life?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 1: If life’s a sum, are our choices calculations?
Note 1: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 1: Created a system we seek to escape?
Note 1: What should be leading us?
Note 2: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 2: The battlegrounds of our minds
Note 2: Who gets to define us
Note 2: Valuing people more
Note 2: Does it all come down to money?
Note 3: Appealing to human nature or the human spirit
Note 3: Intrinsic values on the paths for change?
Note 3: This thing called love
Note 3: What inspires collective endeavours
Note 3: The self within society

What is it, to let another exist in your presence? To not challenge something we find questionable, but let it coexist peaceably alongside our own views, in full acceptance of another’s right to be or think however they choose. This idea of letting multiple realities exist at once and not fighting, not seeking to make our own perspective the only one. Is that what it is to be tolerant? To allow.

It seems to be the root of the word: this sense of not reacting but accepting or enduring something we may not agree with, letting it exist or occur without interference. Almost a stepping back, an allowing of difference and not attacking the other even on the level of thought. It seems quite an incredible notion, even before you factor in all the specific challenges we face in modern times. (Notes One)

How many, in the past, would have had to be as tolerant as we’re expected to be? Within homogenous, closely regulated communities there presumably wasn’t so much “need” for tolerance of contradictory or incompatible ideas, practices and behaviours. Modern societies, though, are so delightfully diverse and free in terms of what we might each choose to believe or act upon in daily life.

Yet if what we think, do and say has impacts for the world we share, how “are” we to tolerate divergent perspectives? Sometimes it seems it can’t be said not to matter – that the ideas we have in mind and paths we’re choosing to walk are perhaps what makes all the difference to the realities we’ll then share, the situations we all have to deal with. What if our choices impinge upon others?

Take, for example, the question of sound sensitivity: if sounds people are making within an environment are causing others inner distress, who’s responsible for resolving the issue? As with anything, there seems a mutuality between cause and effect, and where exactly the line falls between personal freedom, sensitivity and empathy doesn’t always seem so clear. As if the line’s simply a free-floating point we must agree over.

What if one person’s freedom causes another pain? Whatever sensitivity each of us has, might we not be causing one another inadvertent suffering? Whether it’s intellectual, in the realm of ideas; cultural, in terms of beliefs or behaviour; social, in how we relate and treat one another; or personal, on the level of interest or respect – aren’t there countless significant lines we might tread? (Notes Two)

Sometimes the idea of “letting others be” seems an impossible ask. This sense in which the choices we face and freedom we have in our response perhaps carry too much weight. That, left to our own devices, too much pain might be caused and too many irreversible impacts accumulate for us to not “attempt” to shift things in better directions. (Notes Three)

If “how we live” matters, in big and little ways, letting potentially damaging things exist within our environment may be as risky as it is admirable.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Is there any end to the power of thought?
Note 1: Everything culture used to be
Note 1: Giving others space to be
Note 1: Why assume there’s only one set of values?
Note 1: Valuing people more
Note 2: Sensitivity & the place for feeling
Note 2: The incredible responsibility of freedom
Note 2: Treading carefully in the lives of others
Note 2: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 2: Seeing where others are coming from
Note 3: All we’re expected to understand
Note 3: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 3: All that we carry around with us
Note 3: Situations which ask us to trust
Note 3: How are we supposed to choose?

What do we see when we look at others? Are we always weighing up, assigning labels and relating accordingly, or is there more to being human than simply determining our relative strength, power or worth? Do we stand together, or apart? All in one group, moving forwards, or everyone out for themselves, ready to elbow others out of the way at the slightest opportunity.

Don’t the ideas we have in mind about “what life is” make a huge difference to how we live it? Sometimes it seems we’re just setting ourselves against it all: looking out on life with judgement and criticism instead of acceptance or interest. Rather than being happy for others, feeling that anything they have is something we don’t – chalking up all our differences and making them grounds for competition.

Are “other people” always either rivals or allies? People helping our cause or standing against us somehow. As if “life” is gathering together those who serve our interests and fighting against those who offer no clear advantage. Fighting or, perhaps, rejecting: treating them as if they’re not there; of no interest to us; not part of our world. As if we’ll only acknowledge, respect or admire those on “our” side. (Notes One)

Isn’t it a mindset of seeing life as a battle? This idea of us against the world where anyone not thinking the same or pursuing our aims is essentially an opponent. As if we’re each assembling tribes of like-minded people. The only world that exists for us being the version that affirms us, all of our views, and our goals. As if life’s a team sport where we’re all on different sides.

Is it the only way of looking at life? To find those who see life exactly as we do and ignore all the others – or, convert them to your way of thinking. As if life’s not enriched by our differences. As if they don’t provide a fuller, richer, more multifaceted sense of reality that would ultimately serve us all well. Don’t we “need” to see reality from all sides if we’re to understand everything it means to be human? (Notes Two)

Sometimes it just seems a strangely limiting perspective. As if we’re trying to insist there’s only one way to be human, and it has to be ours. Why see things that way when, by our very nature, we live such different lives within different places, governed in different ways, managing different resources, believing different things, standing in different relationships to different people. Isn’t it all just one large web of “humanity”?

How, then, “should” we value others? Why would we ever compare, contrast and judge one way to be best? Wouldn’t society, globally as much as locally, be better off if we valued all human lives more? If everyone were loved, protected and never taken advantage of for personal or collective gain. If, rather than seeking to get ahead, we genuinely sought to treat all others with the respect they also deserve.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What does community mean?
Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: Where do ideas of evolution leave us
Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: What should be leading us?
Note 2: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 2: Living as an open wound
Note 2: Can “how we relate” really change?
Note 2: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 2: These ideas we have of one another

When we think of “community”, what do we have in mind? Is it the affirmation of feeling we belong; the structure it gives to our lives; the logistical support it offers; the sense of meaning or purpose it imparts; or something more? As humans, it seems we “must” live in community – and, that it benefits us in countless ways we mightn’t truly imagine – but do we really understand all it “means” within our lives? (Notes One)

These days, it often feels we’re pulling apart traditional communities and reconfiguring them in virtual ways. As if the ties between us, once tangible, are shifting into this other place where they exist mainly in our minds, while, in reality, we’re more atomised than ever. Choosing our own affinities – those who confirm us – and disconnecting from those around us, aren’t we almost now living in versions of reality that suit “us”?

Does it matter if we disconnect from one another that way? Living alongside complete strangers – whose lives, nevertheless, are joined to ours and impact each other in various ways – while our hearts, minds and allegiances are elsewhere. As if we don’t really care what surrounds us; provided it’s “managed” in ways we don’t find troubling. What does it mean for society if we’re not concerning ourselves with its humanity?

It seems quite an abstract way to live: as if people aren’t “real” so much as obstacles, types or representatives within the greater reality of “our existence”. As if we’re each living in our own worlds; seeing things from our perspective; casting everyone else in light of how well they serve our interests or further our aims. Isn’t it a strange sort of community? Heavy on “the self” and light on “others”.

Living that way, aren’t we also trusting that “others” are taking care of things? That “the system” or those at its helm are ensuring all members of our communities are well-treated and living the best lives they might imagine for themselves. While, face to face, we treat people as if they’re nothing to us – not knowing who they are or understanding where they stand in our world. It seems an unusual way to live (Notes Two).

I mean, as humans, don’t we reflect everything in thought? Reading our environment and representing it with ideas as to its meaning, significance or worth (both relative to us and in the more absolute sense). As if we stand within reality and make sense of it: knowing what each aspect means, where it fits, and why it matters. Responding, then, with an informed sense of each thing’s importance. (Notes Three)

Does this abstract version of community risk making us less human, then? As if, not grasping the reality of our lives, we’re perhaps not treating everything with the respect it deserves (Notes Four). If, despite our capacity for thought, we’re not extending ourselves to understand and appreciate all that stands before us and how it relates to ourselves, what does that mean about how we’re living?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What does community mean?
Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 1: Can “how we relate” really change?
Note 1: Shopping around for a society
Note 1: What inspires collective endeavours
Note 2: Might we lose our social muscles?
Note 2: Integrity and integration
Note 2: Community as an answer
Note 3: Reading into social realities?
Note 3: All we concern ourselves with & encourage
Note 3: What we create by our presence
Note 3: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 4: All we want to do passes through community
Note 4: Picking up after one another
Note 4: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 4: Detaching from the world around us
Note 4: What if solutions aren’t solutions?

Thinking in part of community and in part of global awareness, isn’t it important to fully understand situations? To see where people are coming from; the influences that’ve formed them; the narratives or voices shaping their inner commentary on life and all that surrounds them. Don’t we hear different things? All seeing reality from different perspectives, in different lights, and interpreting it differently.

How much difference does it make? The stories we’re raised with; assumptions we have around certain characters or actions; and ideas around the weight of consequences or rewards different paths in life will be met with. Doesn’t it all inform how we approach things? Subtly shading our reading of the world around us with the inferences, judgements or hopes of all we’ve ever heard over the years (Notes One).

Almost as if we each have a different world in our heads, individually as much as collectively. The shared – or, conflicting – mindsets of nationality and unique mindsets of personality merging into our own, specific take on “life”. Yet, within and between our various communities, don’t those ideas on life converge? Jutting up against one another as we attempt to have just one conversation; despite all our subtle or dramatic differences.

Sharing space and meaning as we attempt to cooperate with one another seems an interesting challenge. Won’t we have different agendas? All hoping, perhaps, to get something different out of any interchange. Whether it’s economics or culture, isn’t there always give and take going on? All these compatible or diverging intentions, expectations and compromises as we each seek to push forward in our own directions. (Notes Two)

As if the world – as much as our local communities – is this strange convergence of disclosed or undisclosed interests crossing over one another in confusing, impenetrable ways. Each player coming from their own backstory, it’s intriguing to imagine which voices are actually speaking and what they’re ultimately aiming to achieve. Also, how many are fairly innocently being taken along for the ride.

My point, though, was that awareness of where people are coming from seems so important. Beyond the knowledge of history or current affairs being a simply academic pursuit or tick-box for citizenship, isn’t it vital that we understand who we’re engaging with? While we might all be having this one, increasingly hasty and tense conversation about “life”, there’s still a lot of nuance and history to our words and their meanings.

Grasping the context, the issues at stake, the underlying values or priorities – the firm or bendable lines – must be essential to communicating or interacting “successfully” with anyone on any matter. This sense in which we need to be using comparable terms and seeing life through others’ eyes if we’re to understand what everything means and how best to respond (Notes Three).

Whether it’s global players, local neighbours or digital strangers, don’t we need to know enough to place one another against a relatively thorough sense of where we each stand if we’re to relate well to other people?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 2: Reading between the lines
Note 2: Plausible deniability
Note 2: Economy as a battleground
Note 3: Can there be beauty in communication?
Note 3: Understanding & staying informed

Looking at the relationships between us, what’s the nature of modern life? It’s perhaps impossible to compare “how things once were” with “how they now are”, but it certainly seems that the way we communicate, relate and deal with people has changed fairly dramatically in recent decades (Notes One). Timeless human functions of relatedness taking on all these new forms and expectations.

So much now seems strangely confident and strangely resigned: these being our communicative options, this is simply the way things are going to go and what it now means to be human. As if going with this flow is the non-negotiable path of human evolution; the only means by which we can exist within our community.

Which is fascinating, in the sense that social relationships aren’t ever these straightforward interactions. The ties between us, the understanding of who any particular individual “is”, the unique way we each see and experience life are often so complicated, so hidden, and so unknown even to ourselves. Life being, in its way, this unravelling of all that’s made us who we are and all we, in turn, are making of it all (Notes Two).

Yet modern communication methods make everything seem so simple, so convenient in how they dovetail into this one device we all need to have. Not wanting to operate that way, aren’t we excluded from society, its services and conversations? As if “that” is where and how life’s now happening; without any parallel activity back in the real world.

Relationships often then seem almost a function of self: a set of connections with those we feel define, enhance or support our chosen way of being. As if our social ties have become this conveniently affirming group of all those we agree and want to move forward with; everyone else either evolving along with us or falling by the wayside.

The echo-chamber offered by technology – whether in terms of information or relatedness – rapidly confirming our own ideas to the point where our tolerance for anyone operating differently might disappear. As if we’re curating this world where only those who agree with us are allowed to exist and everything else is ignored, disengaged with, or converted to our way of thinking. (Notes Three)

Is that all other people and their perspectives are? Something that should conform to our ideas on life. As opposed to each person being their own, unique expression of humanity as it works its way between the various threads that make up our lives within society. This idea of “others” being but actors in another’s starring show; either agreeing to the part on offer or getting brushed off stage.

Sometimes it just seems modern ideas around communication suit some more than others. That the complexity of human life and community are being ushered in directions that leave some very little space to “be” and be recognised for who they actually are. As if there’s now strangely little opportunity for truly appreciating how we all are as human beings.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What does community mean?
Note 1: Joining the dots
Note 1: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 1: Can “how we relate” really change?
Note 1: All in such a rush
Note 2: Complication of being human
Note 2: Imperfection as perfection?
Note 2: Personal archaeology
Note 2: This thing called love
Note 2: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 3: Making things up as we go along
Note 3: Absolute or relative value
Note 3: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 3: Places of belonging and acceptance
Note 3: Frameworks of how we relate