Introduction to Community
There’s a phrase I’ve seen my whole life, “It takes a village”. This has always been used in reference to acknowledge that it takes more than yourself, more than a couple, more than a household to run a society. It takes a community to have a happy, successful, and fulfilling life.
A “community” can be used interchangeably depending on the context. A community can be your immediate support network; this is your family, your friends, your doctor, your therapist, or any other person you might reach out to when you need extra love and care. A community can be where you live; this is your own household, your neighbours, the local coffee shop where the baristas know your order, the leagues, the clubs, the gyms, the daycares, or any other resource you can access by being located near it. A community can be the world, your country, your region, your city, your online group.
There is this other phrase I’ve seen popping up, “Everyone wants a village, no one wants to be a villager.” This is referring to a protective approach to life where people need support but do not offer their own effort. Offering support to others is difficult to navigate, offering effort that may not return a benefit is a risk (whether physical or emotional), and it is so easy to use that self-protection as a way to avoid the extra labour.
The lack of villagers results from a socialization that prioritizes self-preservation. It comes from being told throughout our lives that life is unfair, and we have to get used to it because no one is going to help us. It’s being told our whole lives that the world is cruel and the world is unkind. The lack of villagers results from being told that the only way to survive is to distant yourself from the responsibility of the village.
It’s not true. The way to survive is to be the kindness you want to see. The way to survive is to put in the effort you want for yourself, it’s assuming that everyone is trying their best, and it’s bringing grace and empathy to everyone. Everyone is not just the people you like; it’s the people you don’t like too. It’s the people who have made mistakes, the people who have hurt you. It’s the people who won’t give the effort back, and it’s the people who will give you more effort than you’ve ever given them.
This series is not about making friends; this series is about creating community. This book is to give advice on a philosophy of life that will just that. My philosophy of life is simple (in theory): Approach everything in life with Kindness, Grace, and Empathy.
The philosophy expands past the immediate support network; it’s the entirety of the world as your community. It’s an approach to life that chooses to benefit the most while harming the least. There is no such thing as a perfect world, just like there is no such thing as a perfect person. We can still try.
You can start small, starting with your immediate support network. You start with small changes and habits that will improve your relationship with them and give them opportunities to have a better connection with you. You can join clubs, classes, leagues, gyms, and any other collective of hobbies. This gives you a chance to enjoy your passions and make the connections in the world.
I will be detailing in this series various mantras I try my best to follow. I’ll explain what meaning I pull from the mantra, I’ll explain how to use it in daily life, and I’ll give some stories of how it plays out. My goal is to bring more kindness into the world, and to be the change I want to see.
The Process of Writing This
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the writing, I’d like to clarify a few generalizations I will be making for my partner, Damien, and anyone else who really adheres to statistical language.
I / Me | Me, Carah Malcolm, the author |
You | General You, You the reader |
All / everyone / no one / etc. | Generalizations, this is not an absolute. There are absolutely NO absolutes in my writings. (Except this one). |
The goal in this series is to explain how to build community. The strategy is to approach everything in life with Kindness, Grace, and Empathy. The layout of each section will have various philosophies that weave together to create a lifestyle that prioritizes the benefit of most while harming the least, which in turn will build community on all layers.
The starting point of this book was writing out all the philosophies and mantras I repeat to myself almost daily without even thinking of it. I grouped these philosophies together, and then I wrote what meaning I take from these philosophies, and then I thought of stories in my life where it worked out well.
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