“We cannot live only for ourselves.  A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” –Herman Melville

Those thousand fibers are the little actions and words we hear frequently in our communities.  These actions and words that we frequently hear help us formulate values that our communities pass down to us.  A thousand little fibers by themselves are weak, but when they are put together, they become very strong.  Such is the influence that acts on us; most of what we do is consequent on the influence we received from the community around us, and this is the power of community.

However, in modern Western society, the idea of community has been collapsing as the family unit is collapsing, which is the basis of all society and communities.  Churches have seen stagnation, and schools have seen decline in the quality of their education.

The result of the collapse of community is a high rate of dissatisfaction and even depression.

We should make all efforts to participate in good communities because good communities have three benefits:

1. Building and grounding of values

Who we are today and what we chose to do with our lives including what we are presently doing depends on the communities we have.  The ideas and values dominant in our communities become the ideas and values that we consider important.  We were influenced on our life choices either from our homes, schools, churches, or other organizations to which we belong.

2. Growing personally

To continue growing personally, we need to be part of a community.  When it comes to work, there are professional communities that provide development for us to be successful.

But what about our families, churches, and schools?  These also have a massive impact on us, and they are the most important of all our communities.  Investing in these communities through service and through contributions of our talents, skills, and money will not only cause those communities to grow, but we will also grow as Herman Melville observed, “A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men” because those fibers will end up supporting us when we need support.  Whatever affects the community will affect the individual as well.

3. Effecting positive and lasting change

Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity are an example of how community effects positive change.  While most people think of the individual, Mother Teresa, she was not alone.  She had others with her who started a movement of service and education for the extremely poor in Calcutta.  This movement now serves people in many different countries.  The result was that her actions built a community that has a much larger social impact than would have been possible with one person.  The change has been lasting.

With the advent of technology and its impact on sociality, communities have now changed.

The Role of Technology:

I grew up in a time where technology did not have the massive influence it now has on communication.  When I was in my last year of middle school, I found out that my family would move at the end of the school year.  To me it was devastating.  13 year olds did not have cell phones back then; that was a luxury.  There was no social media, email was not used often by children, and there was really no way to keep in solid contact with most of my childhood friends.  As a result, I lost contact with the majority of my childhood friends.  However, a couple of years later, the social media revolution hit, and I was able to reestablish and maintain contact with my childhood friends, and I have continued to do so until today.

So, there is a great positive that technology adds to community:

Maintaining Contact with Friends

Social media broke down the massive distance between me and my friends.  As a result, we were able to continue the community we had when we all lived in the same place.  We continue to build each other up and strengthen each other in our endeavors so many years later.

However, there are two areas where technology detracts from community:

1. No accountability that comes from a real community

My friends and I grew up without technology, so we learned how to treat others well, and how to respect elders, and what community means.  We transferred what we learned from our real community to the virtual world.  However, there is a whole new generation that has always had technology with them, and this generation when left unchecked has none of the accountability that a real community has.

It is clear from all the news stories covering cyberbullying.

2. Rules of social engagement cannot be properly formed

If the young now communicate using social media and build their communities there without accountability, then they will transfer the wrong conceptions of how to deal with others to their real communities, and the result will be a further breakdown of communities in general.

Maybe this is why communities are breaking down.  We have, for one reason or another, not valued real, human interaction, but have focused on using virtual communications for almost all our communications.

We need to go back to the way we were designed to communicate for the most important things in life, which is face-to-face communication.  If that is not possible, at least hearing each other’s voices is a step closer to real, face-to-face communication.

Without real communities, individuals will not have grounding of good values, personal growth, and the ability to effect positive change.

What communities do you belong to?  How have they impacted you?  If you had not been part of a certain community from your past, would you still be the same person you are today?