A community forms when people coexist in a particular area. It begins to take shape and character when the participants are secure enough to start sharing and learning how to get along with each other, in various degrees. Not all the inhabitants get along peacefully, but that does not mean that they don’t form a community. Their ability to assimilate, or not, forms the character of the community. It could be a close-knit warm community or a cold segregated one.
One might say; it takes all kinds to form a community these days. With the invention of the World Wide Web communities have essentially shattered the previous boundaries where people share commonalities.
Our world community is developing its own character as never before. Since this technology is relatively new it will take some time for people to get accustomed to sharing such a large space. Most will need to make some adjustments.
How do we begin to build small bridges that could be exponentially duplicated in order to form a more harmonious habitat in this new world frontier?
I’m not sure if there is enough commonality within the human species where all could agree with anything in particular. Even when suggestions are offered that are intended to make a positive change there will usually still be naysayers, those that disagree. One would wonder, are there any things we could agree upon just for the sake of forming community?
In order to build a foundation it would be necessary to first understand what causes human beings to be (exist) as they are.
Perhaps there is a common belief that people should think and act in similar ways; that is not true. Different people think and act in ways according to the factors that shaped them. In truth they are so uniquely assimilated that there aren’t even two people who are identical in every way, out of the nearly seven billion people of the world.
Because of how people are indoctrinated and how they process that indoctrination makes it virtually impossible for any two to become truly identical. Both internal and external factors cause people to develop as they do. Additionally, they are guided by their hearts and minds through a maze of decision-making processes of countless choices.
The five natural senses shape people. This means that what we see, hear, taste, touch or smell become molding factors. These are the navigating tools we use to process the physical reality. In addition we have other senses such as intuition, premonition, clairvoyance, and other hidden or submerged senses that shape us, mostly without our perceived awareness.
On top of all the above-mentioned factors we also have to deal with pride and ego. Some think too highly of themselves and others too lowly. In between the two are countless degrees of variations of people dealing with themselves. That does not even take into account how they perceive what others think about them, something that helps shape their personality.
Obviously we can’t overlook traits such as race, culture, gender, physical characteristics, size, and other personal variances we have. Also did I mention our personal preferences as in likes and dislikes? These all make up our personal and unique chemistry.
I remember at one time thinking why other people did not think or act like me. When I put together the many ways that shape us into the individuals we eventually become the better question was how could we possible think or act alike. This leads to another question, which is, how can we learn to utilize our vast differences in order to develop things that achieve the common good? This also leads to a roadblock of discovering what is commonly accepted as good.
Speaking of distinguishing what is good or bad, right or wrong, or otherwise defines our concept of morality, this is where some of our sharper dividing lines exist. Coincidentally this brings back into the equation things such as religion, spirituality, culture and environmental issues again.
So when you put all this together is there any hope of creating a community among human beings that are so distinctly different? There is one element that can bridge all the gaps: Love is the key. In order to create community, harmony, unity, peace and other such redeeming qualities one must put love in front of all other differences. Without love there can be no community.
No comments:
Post a Comment