Tag: community


  • Theme:

    Self-Pity

    1–2 minutes

    The crash of a bad day can lead to blaming others.

    What happens to your empathy when you feel self-pity? Under the mask of outward anger, your heart is turned inward, reserved for yourself.

    In this closed state, you are disconnected from loving others as much as you block yourself from the love and support of others.


  • Theme:

    “nature” is not natural

    1–2 minutes

    Nature is a concept that needs to be clarified.

    If nature exists outside of areas man has civilized, then it is an artificial notion of otherness (an alien space to which we visit.) Extended, we are not natural but temporary inhabitants keeping nature at bay.

    It has colonial roots and enlightenment germination and harbors the seeds of bad faith, yet it is still the soil from which we derive sustenance.


  • Theme:

    maintain friendships

    1–2 minutes

    It seems silly to say, but maintain good friendships. When things go bad, or sideways you are only as good as your support network.

    This requires your support in advance. This is not Machiavellian plotting, simply a reminder to treat people right in the present, offering yourself now, because it models the behavior of care we all wish for.


  • Theme:

    Your absence of rut is your rut

    1–2 minutes

    Without being pressured, one thinks they are free from being influenced.

    However, the absence or negation of pressure creates a rut: a person who feels free freely pushes for autonomy. This is your rut.

    This person tends to end up in the arts or media, arguing for their conception of life. Yet, they are often unable to reconcile their shaped role of opposition as the archetype of an outsider who is inside.


  • Theme:

    Freedom as unfreedom

    1–2 minutes

    To be united in wanting freedom has a paradoxical opposite where each free person wants something different from any other, creating disunity.

    To champion individualism is to back “difference,” yet “individual freedom” often coalesces into herd mentality and similarity.


  • Theme:

    Don’t hurt yourself: vent your anger

    1–2 minutes

    Anger has a bad reputation: "civilized" people control it, and enlightened people are beyond it.
    Obviously, we do not want to give free rein to our anger or inflame it, but it is a natural human response that has been relegated to the realm of "unhealthy."

    The question is how are you going to vent? I would suggest a community of loving friends, who can allow the outburst and dissipate the toxic energies with love.


  • Theme:

    the face

    1–2 minutes

    We forward face: facelifted, in the mirror practiced, rejuvenated, moisturized, and made up. The cliche is that the face is a mask hiding the true self (or lack of a self).

    Yet, the face is vital to the community: we push forward the good-looking orators, designating them "the face of the company" or community. They distract from the rot with burnished beauty, allowing nothing to speak for itself. They mediate perception.

    "The face" is more than attractive: it is a mediating proxy of charming lenses, a model of possibility, which sells us.


  • Theme:

    To become stable alone you first need community

    1–2 minutes

    To grow into the ideal state of autonomy (the robust individual), you must first participate in an ecology of growth and attentiveness.
    You must first build the strength and skill to remain independent later.


  • Theme:

    Psychopathy and schizophrenia is reasonable responses

    1–2 minutes

    If your society rewards sociopathy (or psychopathy), it is reasonable to become antisocial, nonempathetic, and egotistical.
    Then why are we not all psychopaths? Social or familial values counter the destructive values of mercenary conquest.

    We divide our life, pushing for both worldly success and relational solidarity. If not assimilated (synthesized) the dueling pressure can produce a schizophrenic split, allowing you to be alternately psycho and nurturing.


  • Theme:

    Opening yourself leads to exculsion

    1–2 minutes

    To explore the edges, you step across an insubstantial infra-thin line into the extremes.

    In crossing, you are socially (spiritually) evacuated from the standard or commonplace.

    Here, the open ones are shunned as deviant and closed out. In losing the common, a community is found amongst the uncommon, marginally normalizing the once aberrant.