therefore...

apparently, according to some people, putting stuff from message boards on my blog is cheating. well! they just get the raspberry. *pbhthhhhh*

good morning to all 18 of you who might stop through this camp today. or afternoon or whenever you stop through. i have nothing to say. therefore...

ah, therefore...

you know, i should really think about what i want to say in a sentence before i go starting it...

...

- OH! okay i got something. *whew*

i get my interaction with likeminded individuals on through this and other blogs, message boards (i frequent two) and going out with friends - girlfriends and/or the poetry circuit. i moved across four states to live somewhere where interaction like that would be possible for me on a regular basis. i'm glad i did. it's indispensable in my life. i need to exchange ideas and feelings with other people. and i know i'm smarter because of what i learn from others - more well-rounded, more open-minded... even more creative, more confident about myself. lately a lot of things i've been thinking and saying have revolved around the concept of community - communal concern, love, examples, correction, education... i'm beginning to form the opinion that true progress for any individual or any group of people is somehow tied into their relationships with a positive community that enriches and challenges them. do you agree? i mean, how can you learn by yourself? even when you self-teach, you need resources from outside yourself to do so. often, things that broaden a person don't even come in the form of books or tapes, maps or diagrams. they come from living, breathing people. i think God put us here for each other, to edify each other, to increase each other. do you find that to be true in your life? the existence of community gives me hope. i love the reciprocity of giving and getting that happens there. i love belonging to folks and having folks belong to me. that is a beautiful thing!

so many of us don't know or care to know anything about our neighbors. or we pass folks on the street without speaking or at least giving that "i acknowledge that i see you, fellow human being" head nod or smile. children rip and run and noone watches them, they just ask, "where is his mother?" people go to work, then come home, then sleep, then repeat - never reaching to be a part of the pulsating world around them. internet, television, video games... it's scary. i see now how a world like george orwell's 1984 could happen. some of us are already one step from being asocial automatons. old folks in homes. troubled kids in juvie. dads in prison. families are eating separately in three different rooms of the house, instead of facing each other and sharing each other's lives while breaking bread. we better get it together. we're going to just keep getting dumber and lonelier while surrounded by strangers who we have only but to speak to/smile at/strike up a conversation with. when did it get so rough that we have so little faith in each other that we think by default that our positive energy would not be well received? i believe that the likelihood is higher that someone will respond in kind rather than do the crazy stuff we see on the local news (which i try not to watch anymore - sensationalist bastards - got people walking around actually believing that the nuts outnumber the rest of us). all i can say is i think that community is good. and it's free. and it's easier than we think. and it's cheaper than welfare. and it's better than ethnic sensitivity classes. did i say it's free?

have a good weekend, folks.

*edit* the next time i post something that's got glaring incoherency in it up on this here blog, i would appreciate it if i got a comment telling me to go make my rambling more readable! this is train of thought, but its efficacy is only as potent as my ability to make it plain, yahmean? i have edited the post since this morning, 'cause some of that stuff was just atrocious. anyway, this ends my editor's announcement. you may now commence the rest of your weekend, dear hearts. *mwah!*