community is a large part of life. communities are things that businesses hope they can create and that people are eager to be a part of. there essentially two truths about communities.
with these two truths one would think that communities and the art of creating a community should be simple. make sure you have a critical mass of people and they will be happy and your community will thrive. this is the example I see most often. churches and businesses alike have great to create community (for different end goals obviously). there is nothing wrong with this desire as communities benefit both groups greatly. there are many social media experts and consultants that groups can hire to attempt to grow or cultivate their communities. I will say quite simply this is a waste of resources and time.
the fundamental problem is that community is not something that can be created. as it turns out the truths above don't work both ways. having people does not make a community. you cannot say that you are going to grow a community if you do x, y, and z. there is a non-zero chance that a community may form if you do say those things but it isn't a guarantee.
communities are organic things, just like people. or rather a mold. yes let's go with mold. they will pop up where they feel like, when they feel like and die if they choose to.
expressed more fully I mean that given a group of likeminded people in a common location at the same time, they will communicate and relate. those relations will naturally grow and become bonds. this is how a community grows. a series of 1 on 1 relationships that form a network that is larger than any one individual relationship. by the same token though communities have natural life spans and at some point they die. if you try to hold on the idea of a specific community once it has passed it's life expectancy you will find that those actions will have a negative impact on the relationships that you previously relied upon as a member of the community.
business that want to create communities generally skip over the 1 on 1 relationship aspect and wonder why no one forms a real attachment. churches on the other hand are dealing with communities dying out and respond by doubling down on the same methods using the mentality of if we try harder then people will come back. however like a bad relationship sometimes trying harder will just push people away and alienate them.
thus the problem is not that communities are dying but rather that we cling to what we know for too long. as someone who lives in a university town I experience the rise and fall of communities at an accelerated rate. looking back over the past 7 years I can identify 3 distinct, sequential communities that I was a part of. each was the product of the failure of a previous community and often shared similar components but was unique in it's own right. life follows death, it is the natural order of things.
the death of a community is not something we need to fear. something will grow to replace it, often something that is stronger and healthier because the individuals that compose the community have learned lessons from all of their past communities. the thing we need to fear is not being willing to let go of something that has already died. when we do that we not only hurt ourselves, but also those that were a part of what made it great in the past.
what motivates us to create? where do we find our muse?
I haven't been creating much lately. not music, not photos, and not words on a page. I have a theory about why this is.
I am happy.
the friction I need to overcome to create seems to be greater when I am happy and everything is going well in life. when I am unhappy the words seem to poor out of my soul. when I am unhappy I don't want to let go of my camera for fear that I would miss capturing the next moment of pure beauty or emotion that I am around.
looking around the world a lot of art is created through the lens of pain. music is often sung from heartbreak. painting as an expression of deep desires of the soul. this is not something that I will take exception with. to do so would belittle the work these people do.
the question should instead be "how do I continue creating when my soul isn't grieving". I don't have an answer to this. if I knew how to find a muse and continue creating when life is rainbows and sunshine I wouldn't be writing this post. I do think that it has to be a two part question. I believe there are spiritual and practical components to it. the ability to create feels like something that should be a result of being balanced and healthy in both of those areas in your life. both spiritually and practically you should not be willing to sit on the sidelines and consume. instead you should be making a mark somehow.
so go make something.
even if you feel like you don't need to.
I often have found myself picking on the church. I do this not because I have been wronged by it any way but more because it is the environment that I know. the following thoughts can be applied directly to any church although really it is directed towards the "moral authorities" whoever they may be.
I have written many times about ideas of love and interactions with the people of our lives. I am beginning from a similar place although going in a different direction. another appropriate title for this post might have been "strangers". regardless of affiliation the community you belong to has a profound impact on how we are raised and this in turn sets us into motion for how we will interact with the world. one of the first ideals that we strive to instill into children, partially because it is aided by their biological instincts, is trust. specifically who to trust and who not to trust. we are constantly telling children to not talk to strangers and definitely not to take things from them. we teach about authority figures and how children can ALWAYS trust them (which is always a good plan right up to the moment when it isn't true).
as children continue to grow, social interaction and relationships are a big focus of education. teachers will notify parents if a child doesn't interact with others well, a heavy focus on sharing, etc. this is important because relationships are the thing that defines our lives. sure there may be other accomplishments but the ones that really matter are the people in our lives that will always be there. because of the importance of this we teach from a conservative place. always concerned with safety and injury — either physical or emotional — because we don't want them to have to experience our own pain or fears.
the peak of this educational strategy comes when we teach teens about romantic relationships. these are often the cause of most of our own pain so they receive the closest of instruction. the teaching often takes the form of "guard your heart". don't let anyone get too close unless you are sure they are worth it, or have earned it.
brief disclaimer, I am not saying we shouldn't teach caution nor would I ever say that. my issue with this is that we have taught future generations to be closed, to hold tight to what they have so that they will never have less. the process of loving others, romantically or platonically is an action of pouring yourself out, making yourself vulnerable and showing those people that you value you them enough to risk yourself.
the scope of this is not limited to troubled or stifled social interactions in the future. it is a killer for creation. our culture is often lambasted for it's consumerist or sheeple type ways. a cookie cutter culture if you will. the way to overcome this of course is to develop people who are creating art, creating music, leaving a mark in ways that I cannot define. however art and creation is an act of pouring oneself into something, often bigger then themselves. however the guards and walls we teach people to build around their hearts are killing art before it even has a chance to form.
art comes from pain, from tragedy, from hope and hopelessness alike. these are all states that we teach children and teenagers to avoid. we should be teaching the process of embracing these things, how to move forward when it feels like we have no more forward in us.
we need to embrace our own pain that has us teaching things like "guard your heart" so that we stop killing the capacity for great creations of others.
