Community Of Indiviudals
When you think of someone what is the first thing that comes to mind. Is it what they have done to you, or for you? Is it how they act or how they appear? These questions are the driving force of how we look at individuals that we meet or see on a daily basis. We always ask ourselves who this person is and what they mean to us, which is a simple question but yet so complex. Many variables such as a person’s feelings and emotions come into play when the process of judgment begins. This is very apparent when looking at my life. Although I haven’t met anyone new in weeks, when I do, I ask myself the very same questions. The results of those questions will determine how I react to this person no matter the positives and/or the negatives.
Communities are what the majority of people currently reside in, they have varying names but all come from the same idea. This idea is how individuals make up communities. This idea is very obvious to everybody because clearly in order to have a community of people, they must be a part of it to make it an actual community. But what makes a community unique? Many argue that the landscape or the buildings that surround the community make it what it is. Although they can attribute to the identity of it, it simply is not true. What makes a community unique is the people that reside in them. Every person in the world is different and when different people come together to create a group, that group is considerably different from one another. In “Catfish & Mandala” by Andrew X. Pham, Andrew tells the story of himself and how he travels to America, but later revisits his old home in Vietnam. Looking at the two different countries anybody can see the clear differences that the two communities have, both being on opposite sides of the world. Andrew, who travels between the two, and sees the differences, begin to change as he adapts to new and different American culture. Not only is he changing but you can also see that the community is changing around him.
I am a firm believer that the difference that an individual provides is essential to the main identity that a community has. The difference between communities also branches from different cultures. Not only is this necessary in our society, but it is also needed to have a clear understanding of diversity in humanity. Each person has different traits that make them inherently different, some can be good and some can be bad but no matter what the traits are, they are what makes an individual “unique”. For example, a community such as my neighborhood is a good example of a diverse group of people that exhibit unique traits. There is nobody that I can find that looks and behaves the same. Each and every individual person that lives in my neighborhood brings something new to the table. One person could behave the same as one another, yet have a huge influence on the diversity of the community as a whole. In the article, “What Good is ‘Community’ When Someone Else Makes All the Rules”, by Carina Chocano, writes “Nobody belongs to just one community, which is part of how communities exert their influence on us: We are different people inside different ones. Our roles and identities shift from one to the next, in large part because the spaces ask different things of us”. This statement is entirely true based on how any person can be a part of more than one community.
A person can have traits that also match others which will lead them to become compatible. To be different is not hard, as all people are unique in their own ways, but having that same diversity attributed to the identity of the community as a whole is completely different. We as a society should be encouraging the branching out of people and their emotions. Expressing ourselves is a great way to build character and morals which will help shape communities in the long run. In the essay, “Where I lived, and what I lived for” Henry David Thoreau, writes, “The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives conceiving then. The poet or artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.” This quote explains how a society should allow people to build their own lives and spend them as they please. This is mainly because of how we perceive life. We are expected to build our character through experiences that are set by others when in reality we should be let loose and naturally become a member of society which in the end, will create a great individual as well as the community.
