Today, I hate community. A lot.
Community is tough to deal with day in and day out. Community means you willing let the people around you be up in your business. I don’t always want the people around me to be in community with me.
Sometimes, I want to be an island.
Sometimes I want to be left alone with my own self destructive devices.
The important thing to remember about community is that we always crave community. Even self declared loners crave community; they just are more vocal about only craving community on their own terms. And we all try to have community based largely on our own terms. We seek to build communities that are filled with people who are like us.
Even if you say that diversity in a community is important to you, you are still entering a community that is filled with people who are like you – people who crave diversity.
So what ends up happening is that bloggers join communities that are filled with other bloggers. Christians join communities that are filled with other Christians. Greek life alumnae join alumnae associations for their own organizations.
It is simple really.
Community is rough because ideally your community is filled with people who are going to call you out on your shit. And more importantly, people who are going to call you out on the important shit. Because it is so easy to call someone out on their shit when it is trivial. It is far easier to call me out on the fact that I never return phone calls than it is to call me out on my ability to write people off who wrong me.
I might say I want a community that calls me out but what I really want is a community where I can call other people out on their shit. Because calling other people out feels safer than it does to be on the receiving end.
But what I need to grow as a person is a community that is going to tell me, quite loudly, when I am messing up hardcore. I need a community who is going to be there for me, whether I want them there or not. I need community that both humbles me and lifts me up.
This is why we crave community. We crave community to save us from ourselves.
Wanting community just isn’t enough. We have to crave it in order to venture out to seek community. We are, in fact, social creatures.
But today, I hate community. Because community also means being involved and sometimes being involved is just inconvenient. Sometimes being involved means going to things that you aren’t interested in, just because it is important to someone else. Sometimes being involved means making a meal for someone when you really want to be at home on the couch, watching bad television. Sometimes being involved means listening to someone rant like a lunatic when you really want to tell them they sound like a jackass.
Community does not equal easy.
Being a part of a community, not just lurking on the fringes of community, means that there is work involved. It is the same kind of work that goes into building a marriage. It simply doesn’t work if the parties involved don’t put in the effort.
So today, I hate community. Because I don’t really want to put the work into community. And that’s okay. My cravings for community trump my inner urges of laziness. So I keep putting the work in, even when it is not easy and even when it is not convenient.
I do it because tomorrow I’ll want to be apart again.
PJ_Normz said...
1I love when people call me out on my shit. As a matter of fact, I believe I have almost created this inner being inside me that now calls myself out for me.
As crazy as that might sound, I think when you hear those voices that tell you what you should do, even though you don’t want to, you must listen to them. Those voices are your brain testing your body. Not listening to them may seem nice during the moment, but you will certainly regret it later on.
I have found listening to those ‘community’ voices, whether your friends, family, or your own, pushes you to be a better person. Those voices become a challenge, and I love a challenge.
10/28/08 8:13 AM | Comment Link
Rebecca said...
2Great post! I totally agree. Interesting that I think Generation Y lives by the quasi-anonymous rule. We want to remain generally anonymous in our lives, but be able to walk out and find community at our doorstep whenever it is convenient for us.
11/10/08 2:02 PM | Comment Link
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Monica said...
4Great post! My fave line => I need community that both humbles me and lifts me up.
This is so true! I would also add that I want a community that I can learn from. (this includes calling me out on my shit)
11/20/08 7:06 PM | Comment Link
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