I feel that my folk dance community is a pretty solidly real one—people help each other move, etc. The duration is reassuring to me—the community has been in roughly its current form since the 1970s, so folk dancers my age are attending each other’s weddings and baby showers but we eventually expect to attend each other’s funerals. But I agree that a lot of community institutions aren’t that solid.
I recently chatted with someone who said they’ve been part of ~5 communities over their life, and that all but one of them was more “real community” like than the rationalists. So maybe there’s plenty of good stuff out there and I’ve just somehow filtered it out of my life.
The “real communities” I’ve been part of are mostly longer-established, intergenerational ones. I think starting a community with almost entirely 20-somethings is a hard place to start from. Of course most communities started like that, but not all of them make it to being intergenerational.
I saw what seemed like potential communities over the years “soccer club, improv comedy club, local toastmasters” but I was afraid… to be myself, being judged, making a fool of me, worried about being liked… so I passed. Here I am now in EA giving it a shot. I may go to the improv comedy mtgs soon. According to Hari’s “Lost connections” finding a community is very important; we social animals and don’t do well in loneliness.
I feel that my folk dance community is a pretty solidly real one—people help each other move, etc. The duration is reassuring to me—the community has been in roughly its current form since the 1970s, so folk dancers my age are attending each other’s weddings and baby showers but we eventually expect to attend each other’s funerals. But I agree that a lot of community institutions aren’t that solid.
I recently chatted with someone who said they’ve been part of ~5 communities over their life, and that all but one of them was more “real community” like than the rationalists. So maybe there’s plenty of good stuff out there and I’ve just somehow filtered it out of my life.
The “real communities” I’ve been part of are mostly longer-established, intergenerational ones. I think starting a community with almost entirely 20-somethings is a hard place to start from. Of course most communities started like that, but not all of them make it to being intergenerational.
I saw what seemed like potential communities over the years “soccer club, improv comedy club, local toastmasters” but I was afraid… to be myself, being judged, making a fool of me, worried about being liked… so I passed. Here I am now in EA giving it a shot. I may go to the improv comedy mtgs soon. According to Hari’s “Lost connections” finding a community is very important; we social animals and don’t do well in loneliness.
fold dance community sounds wonderful and fun :)