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Community - VIP Audio

Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to this month’s lesson. Our topic this month is ‘community’, you know true community. This topic was inspired by, I don’t know, a paragraph or a little short blurb. A ‘blurb’ is like a small section of a book that I was reading. A book from a guy named John Gotto I believe is the book I read. Sometimes I forget where I hear these things and read them, but Gotto g-o-t-t-o.

In the book this writer was talking about the difference between networks and communities. I thought it was a very interesting topic and I could definitely see his points and see the same distinctions, the same ideas in my own life and I think in a lot of people’s lives. So let’s talk about this idea first in a general way, just what does this guy mean when he talks about a network versus a true community and then we can, of course, later talk about how we can maybe apply this idea to our own lives in a more practical way.

So Gotto’s idea was that, unfortunately, in kind of modern life that our communities are being replaced by networks. That it’s harder and harder to create or to keep or to build true communities and that instead we’re replacing a lot of our communities with what he calls ‘networks’. What he means by this is a network, as he defines it, it’s a group of connections based around a few shared interests, one or maybe a few shared interests.

So, for example, okay, well I just started learning to kite surf so I’ve met some people who also kite surf. So let’s say I keep doing it and I make a lot of contacts and then I know a lot of people who also kite surf and I have all these acquaintances and friends who are kite surfers. Well, that would be my kite surfing network, right? Our connection to each other is based on the activity of kite surfing.

Another example of this would be graduate school. When I went to graduate school I had a lot of connections with the people in my class who were going through graduate school at the same time. We got together a lot. We had dinners. We went out and did social things together. Of course we were in classes together, so we had a lot of connections.

So nothing wrong with that. That’s all great, but the weakness of networks – this is what John Gotto says and I agree – is that they’re kind of weak because if you lose that interest you also tend to lose the people. They can kind of fall apart quite quickly. For example, graduate school is a great example.

After I graduated from graduate school, all those people who I was seeing all the time every day they all left, right? They all moved away, got jobs, got busy, as did I. I tried to stay in touch with some of them. I tried to keep contact with them, but you know, gradually, those contacts got less and less and less and less and less. This is kind of normal for a network in that if you lose that reason for the connection, that shared interest, then you can really lose the connections.

A community is different. So a community, as we’re going to use the word, is really a much deeper connection between people and the best of example of community, I guess the root of it would be family because we tend to, usually, not always, but usually, stay connected to our family members for our whole life, even if we don’t even like some of them, right? Some of them are maybe really difficult and they’re totally different than we are and, yet, somehow we stay connected to them.

I’ll give you a good example of this, let’s say my sister and I. So I love my sister and I still talk to her several times a month. I still have this connection, I have my whole and will continue to and, yet, we don’t really even have a lot of shared interests. Our lives are like very, very, very, very different. I travel all the time. I’m always wandering around, never stop moving and she’s been in the same small town for years and years and years. She has three kids and is getting ready to have another one, I have none. I mean I can go on and on, but basically our lives are totally completely different and, yet, we still have a connection.

So that’s kind of what we’re talking about with community is there’s something with a community that creates a really deep connection. The connection is based on more than like just a shared hobby or something or just a shared experience, it goes deeper.

Family it’s easy to see because you grow up, you’re raised with certain people, you see them through your whole life and so that’s a certain deep connection, especially with family members that you actually like, which hopefully are most of them.

Another example of community from my own life is I have a few very close friends that I’ve known for many, many, many, many years. So, you know I always talk about Kristen and Joe from Learn Real English. Some of you know Learn Real English from those lessons. In fact, you definitely know them because I give them to you as bonus lessons sometimes. So you’ve heard Kristen and Joe speaking before.

Well, those are my two best friends. I’ve known them for many, many, many years and in some ways we’re very similar and we have a lot of shared interests, but we also have a lot of big differences. Joe and I, especially, are very, very different. Our personalities are extremely different and, yet, we still have this long-term connection. It’s not just based on one interest and so it’s strong and it’s lasted for many, many years. It’s lasted through many challenges and difficulties.

The reason I’m talking about this topic, it’s like why are we talking about this, is because I think that most of us want more community in our life. We want more of those deeper, stronger connections. I know a lot of us, I know I have in my life many times, felt kind of disconnected or isolated or lonely because I’ve had a lot of these network kind of connections that then fall apart. I was really happy when I was in grad school. I thought oh, I have all these connections and then I graduate and then all my friends are gone and it was pretty depressing actually at the time.

So now I have come to appreciate those stronger community connections and try to think about more deeply well, what’s the difference? You know, why is it that one group of friends I thought was real and that I really enjoyed just disappeared so quickly and then these other few friends I stay connected to them year, after year, after year, after year.

I think the reason we should think about this is then maybe if we can find out what the differences are we can actually try to focus on building communities and developing deeper connections with people and it can be a lot more satisfying. So based on some of the ideas from this book I was reading and just some things I was thinking about, I think I’ve identified a few ideas that show the difference.

So one idea or one clear thing is that communities are really more focused on like the whole person, right? In a network, again, the nature of a network is you tend to focus on just one aspect of a person, one interest or one group of interests. When I was in grad school it was our shared interest in getting a degree in social work. So as long as we had that great, but as soon as it was gone, you know, we all left and we lost those connections; whereas, with a community you’re really connected to the whole person.

You’re kind of accepting this person’s whole personality. You’re connecting in multiple ways, so maybe at the family level; maybe in terms of some activity or physical activity; maybe in terms of several shared experiences; maybe in terms of emotions and talking about certain emotional experiences; maybe sharing certain challenges and difficulties together and solving certain problems together. To create a community, a deeper connection, you need several of those things. Just one of those is not enough.

So let’s say with my friends Kristen and Joe, I’ve traveled with them. I have a business partnership with them, so we’re always solving problems discussing business. If it was only that it wouldn’t really be that deep I think. If we were only business partners and then the business ended well then that would probably be the end of our friendship, but it’s more than that. Like I said, we’ve traveled together. In Kristen’s case we went to the same university together. We lived and worked in different countries together. I mean I could go on and on, but there are lots and lots and lots and lots of points of contact.

So, one key to developing a community is to share more of yourself. Don’t just focus on one aspect, but try to share about your family, about your friends, about your interests.

Do things together. Solve problems together. Create projects together. Be creative together. The more of these things you add the stronger the connection is because you’re connecting more as whole people.

Another aspect of what we might call true community or true connections or deeper connections is that they tend to kind of honor and accept differences and problems. So the kind of more network connections, like grad school or like kite surfing or something, they’re totally focused on how we’re the same, right? We’re all interested in the same thing and don’t really tolerate a lot of differences, but with my true friends and my family one thing I have used to identify and know if someone is really a good friend is if I can disagree with them, have a big emotional fight when them even and then afterwards talk about it and you know you kind of make up and then you’re stronger.

I certainly have done that with my family members many times and I’ve done that with my friends. Again, I’ll use my two best friends Kristen and Joe as an example, with them, absolutely. Kristen and I can fight like crazy. With my wife, certainly we’ve had our arguments and disagreements. Joe and I are constantly seeing things in a different way, all of these misunderstandings and things, but yet we always move past that and because of that it develops a really strong connection because we know that we can survive difficult things. We know that we can survive differences of opinion, even very emotional ones and that creates a much deeper connection.

I’d say the third thing I would identify, maybe the third and last aspect of a deeper connection, is that your real community they will show up when you’re having a tough time. When things are bad in your life, when you’re depressed, when you’ve lost your job, when you are sick, the network, the people who aren’t really tightly connected they run away. They don’t want to deal with you at that time, but your real friends, your real connection, your real community, they will support you and they actually will show up more at those times. They’re the ones who’ll start calling you to check and see if you’re okay. They’re the ones who’ll talk to you for a long time, even when they’ve heard it ten thousand times.

So those three things: It’s connections based on the whole person not just one thing, number two, the ability to disagree and even fight and argue and still keep that connection and then the third thing is that you show up and support each other at the bad times, at the worst times. So that’s it, those are the basic ideas I want you to think about.

In the commentary I’m going to talk about how we might build a more true community with this membership program. I don’t want it just to be this online English program, right? The whole idea of this program is that it’s more than that, is that it’s an international community, that we’re making connections. We’ve seen this happen already. We’ve seen some of our European members take trips together and become actually very close friends. Tamoa and I visited Barcelona and had an amazing time and only a little bit of it was about English. Most of it was just about connecting as real people.

So we’ll talk about that in the commentary, how we’re gonna all try to use this in this program to build something that’s stronger and more meaningful for us. So I’ll see you in the commentary. All right, bye-bye.