Lets be Honest about "Community"

Community. I've heard this term thrown around so much over the last 15 years and it's typical usage makes me cringe as its usually anything but community. It's either A) Thinking your community is the community the world revolves around or B) It's a term that sounds warmer and friendlier than "demographic" so people toss it in to make it sound less clinical. Neither case I feel is really about community or giving a shit about anything other than yourself. Which hey, I think the world is cruel and you gotta look out for yourself above all because YOU need to be at your best to be of any good to any community, but let's be honest that's not what community is really about.

Real community is the community around you in real life. Not what you think the demographic data tells you or the reputation of a particular zip code but real community is the people you interact with every day and thats where we should be developing our concepts on what community is/isn't from because its right there in front of us every single day. It's also a great place to start learning what people really want in life anywhere you go. The coffee shops, dinner counters, bars, bike shops, and anything within walking distance of where you live and where you work is a great starting point to dive into what community is.

Get to know the person who makes your coffee. Get to know their boss and the owner of the business they work for. Get to know what at the end of the day really matters to people beyond things like perceived political or religious affiliations which really tell you nothing. Where are they from originally? Where have they been? Why do they do what they do? What do they do for fun? What music do they listen to? What did they do last weekend and how's their health and how's their parents doing and their partners partners and on goes the list. Now do this for where you eat each day. Where you buy things from. Where you get gasoline each week and your grocery store if possible. Why? because this is how you actually get to understand how real people think that you actually interact with each week and can observe over weeks, months, years. Not what some article says or what podcast said about xyz. Real talk from real people just trying to make sense of a world that you are living in now.

That living in now part is critical because its too easy to forget that you're not an island. You're not the only person living in your neighborhood or working in your building. Living in your town. Yet people tend to limit their exposure to the people/groups they agree with or feel safe with. With such little communities of people who've blocked out the real world you can tell each other all sorts of comforting lies about why the world is the way it is and all decide on who's to blame. If only so and so was still president or got elected or wasn't there then all our problems will go away. One person doing one job for maybe 8 years of their life. Yep, that person is who's gonna make things better/reason things are bad. Or whatever devil you choose to tell each other each other is responsible for the good and bad in the world. Then we go tell people on social media and anyone who disagrees is apart of the problem and anyone who agrees is on the right path. All without actually seeing what the people in your world around you that are apart of your real community think.

Which is really a great example of why all these BS community builder types typically fall short...they forget about the rest of the world and are clueless of what the world they actually live in is like. Oh sure, they can whip up some great charts and share surveys/demographic data to support what they propose and it can kinda get ya pretty far in the right setting....but its still manufactured in a sense. It's all tuned to create a reality that requires buy in and fair enough, maybe enough people will buy in but did you really just create community or did you just create followers?

I'm hard on these points because I feel its' the disconnect from the actual communities we live in and what we're doing for work gets separated too much. You need to be in touch with who you are to grow as a person, and you need to be in touch with the actual community you live in before you can be a true community builder. Taking selfies with the same 10 people at community events and using #community in your posts doesn't mean shit. Doesn't give you perspective. Doesn't teach you what questions to ask that lead to real long term solutions.

You see we're still human beings at the end of the day. We're designed to observe, take notes, maybe make things, and learn from them. Oh and some of us will have create more people to do just that again and again. We still want real human interaction and benefit from it even if we think we're an introvert or whatever. If we're not doing this constantly in our non work lives, but instead watching reality TV or TV period in the same hours of the day we should be talking with our neighbors and friends...thats how we're getting this huge disconnect in the world. TV distorts people's sense of the reality of their own world when they are not engaged in their own world enough. If you want proof, just look at how people create a false sense of community based off the most horrible of TV shoe formats out there...."reality" tv. Which isn't even close to being based in actual reality and is actually pretty heavily scripted. All designed in the end to reel you in so they can put you in front of advertisers that pay for that right. Yet people follow this as though it's real. Talk about these terrible shows in place of whats really going on in the community they live in.

This isn't all just a rant to get you all to follow me or put me on a pedestal. I really feel the act of creating followers is pointless unless you educate and empower them. I really live this life I'm advocating here. I go to a coffee shop in my neighborhood each morning not because I don't have coffee at home but because thats a great place to start your day to get you in the mindset of what your community is like. The real one you live in. You learn what is going on in people's lives who are just minutes away from you and breathing the same air. Over time, you take care of each other too. I've been there for people some days and other days I walk in that door because I need my people. So yeah, starts with my coffee shop stop and typically while on a morning walk too.

Next I interact with those I get lunch from. Some I know their names and some I just know. Taking an active interest in others gets people to open up and you can quickly get past the typical security blankets of mass movement affiliation and start to learn what draws them in. What needs aren't being fulfilled? Can you help? Do you even need to help is just listening all that person needs today? Or do you simply just get to take a break and its unspoken you come in to take a break so work never comes up? No you won't solve the worlds problems every week, but you do learn often the problems of the world aren't necessarily the problems of the people in your world.

After that I have my stops I like to make if I'm in a part of town or need a break from the day. Bike shops, record stores, comic book stores, the book stores, as well as many others. These places I find are great places for interaction as they're a tad more focused, but also create a common ground to stand on. Call it a control if you will. And you learn a bit over time from learning how these folks are as well. Sometimes they're close to home and work, sometimes they're in a different part of town or a different town so you get a fresh perspective while still staying within a community you're in.

Of course, end of the day there are restaurants I prefer because of the interaction and the fact they're in my neighborhood or close by. I like to get to know the owners when possible too. Same with bars. But really the key here are the people serving you and how important they really are. The good wait staff and bartenders are on the front lines of the community you're in and they know it. They see and hear all even if you don't think they do. And thats a wonderful perspective within a community to get.

Hopefully by now you've picked up that this whole notion of community is something I do take very seriously. More importantly though you're seeing why it is and I've given you perspective as to why you should dive deeper into your own community right where you are. The benefits will come in time to your own sense of self and realizing what you're actually apart of in your world. And if you're someone who's in charge of creating community or leading communities of people and you're not doing this...well, time to get at it. It'll change your world, make you more effective at what you do, and you'll actually make a difference one day.