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@person said:
I've been thinking about community lately. What is it exactly, what are the pros and cons, who's included, who says, etc.?

I've been wrestling with this question for 20 years and wrote about it in 2020.

The word is unfortunately "loaded" — it means many things to many people. Whenever I've tried to create a tight definition, I've gotten vehement pushback from people that believe their model counts as community too, even though I disagree. The digital world has challenged us by creating so many novel ways of interacting but not giving us the words to capture the nuance.

More recently, I've written down five beliefs I have about community. They're not meant to say "your definition isn't real", but rather to draw a line in the sand about what I'm pursuing when I talk about it in the context of software.

@person :
What is true is that you were born, you live, you question, you seek.
That is the start.
Every day is a fresh start
Congratulations!

The community groups I’m currently a part of (about 3 or 4) ….were started and have been held up by the favor economy concept…. Or some say the Benjamin Franklin theory/effect.

https://dailyutahchronicle.com/2024/08/31/opinion-choose-community-not-capitalism/

I’ll give specific examples later… I’m at work… gotta go

I was reflecting on the tension between many ideas and ways of living. The specific example I had in mind was the way our lives are directed by circumstance and luck on the one hand and our ability to have agency and direct the course of events on the other. It seems to me the best way to chart a course through life is to walk a balance between acknowledging the way events outside of our control shape us while at the same time putting effort into our own personal agency.

Many things operate in this manner, individual expression in tension with group solidarity, exercise and movement in tension with rest and relax, etc. Yin and yang.

In trying to live a worldly life managing this tension I think is a function of wisdom as in the serenity prayer's "knowing the difference". But in the spirit of a Buddhist view of Dukkha things never quite fit, its always a struggle to maintain a good place. It seems possible to do a decent job of it for the span of a human life, but I want to stay open to the possibility of rebirth and there it seems in that context, a fall is inevitable, so I feel I should make efforts at liberation. But I also don't have any real proof that rebirth is real, so I have a hard time committing to a path of renunciation.

So I'm attempting to live a worldly life in balance, while simultaneously acknowledging that its ultimately a losing proposition and putting some effort into a longer term plan.