@Jolly said in Community:
The point of all this blather? Seems like we as a society are losing our sense of community, both locally and nationally. There are things we can do, but it takes concern and effort.
You want to take a fun, deep dive into that very topic, then I highly recommend reading Bowling Alone or The Vanishing Neighbor. Both are great.
Choice, convenience and expediency have always come at the expense of community, meaning and a sense of accomplishment. It just didn't matter so much. Sure I could build my own furniture but just let me visit a store, thanks.
Much like cocaine, we've hit an inflection point with this compromise. We're now sacrificing a lot of humanity for the sake of choice, convenience and expediency.
For example, when Spotify first came out, it seemed extraordinary. “All those songs in my pocket? Hell yes, sign me up!”
The ads didn't tell me that my friends and I would no longer be swapping albums like we did with tapes and CDs. That my car’s cupholder would now house a nondescript metal card instead of physical artifacts of my musical education. That oh by the way, my friends would no longer sit beside me, picking up those tapes and CDs to talk to me about them because we both have Facebook now and don't hang out anymore. That I’d stop going to music stores because why bother. That Spotify would put those stores out of business. That Spotify would work on leveraging AI against musicians to put them out of business, too.
I'm a bit fucking done with all of it. For the past year I've started to become a lot more deliberate about community, connections and doing things in the real. I'm still very much working on getting better at it.