Note that communities doesn’t just refer to the hippie variety. Community is also: your family, your village, your online friends, your class. Community are the neighbours next door. When I moved into my new home my neighbours came and brought food - and I realized that I really didn’t know enough about communities anymore, so I’m here to learn.

A village community is different from an online community. You cannot just change it from one day to the next. Not every expectation in a village might agree with you: there is a soft pressure from some people to join some of the religious festivities and have the priest bless your house, not so much my thing - but it limits full integration and makes that I remain foreign.

I moved into the first community of the hippy/punk variety when I was 17, and even though it appeared a continuous failure at the time (all the conflict, all the people arriving and leaving) it did keep me alive and sheltered and in good spirits for 4 years and the place is still in the hands of a group, not one person, till today, yay.

  • poVoqA
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    9 months ago

    A small community without some visible conflict makes me suspicious it might be a cult or so 😅

    • schmorpOPM
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      9 months ago

      You’re right, maybe I should have been more specific and call it ‘unskilled in handling own emotions’ and ‘unskilled in handling conflicts’.

      I did visit a few places where conflict was replaced by common singing and dancing and submitting to [someone or something who knows better than you] , and it felt extremely off. The smiles of people are all off in that case.