Community

Everyone and everything is part of a community, though how large the community is and who/what is in it varies. Human beings seem to change communities more than most species, moving between communities and changing communities more and more often. At what cost?

Communities developed as people realised they needed to trust others to survive and work with others for the common good of their community. Nowadays we leave communities searching for spouses, education, jobs, fun, adventure or just something new and different. Ironically the people that are forced to leave communities are often the ones that do not -they are forced to leave because occasionally they did something to offend the community, but most likely because the community is unable to provide for those within it any more.

A sense of community is essentially similar to a sense of social responsibility, though a sense of community is easier to define and provides more tangible benefits to those within it. It is, I believe, not a bad thing to move communities, but the bad thing is that once we move out of a community we often do not move into another one, or we do not recognise the one we have moved into -how big is it? who is in it? what are the commonalities holding the community together?

We don't recognise our community because we are not trying to; we are not trying to because we do not recognise the value of a community -to us or to others. We do often end up in some kind of community, whether we want to or not, but then we are not entirely aware of it, and are not sure if it is the right community for us. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. These new communities that we join are often short-lived or only based on a social nature; thus there is no long-term commitment to the community, especially it's physical environmental nature.

We need to identify our community and it's impacts. We need to recognise it for what it is worth and strive to improve the value we get from it, and the collective value within it, as well as how it interacts with other communities. I worry that as we lose our sense of community, we venture into the unknown -with unknown consequences, both short and long-term. What community are you a part of?