The Evolution of Community and How Our Shared Stories Hold Us Together

"A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality" - Yoko Ono++

For thousands of years, humans have created communities to survive and thrive. And that effort has evolved as we created language and agriculture, commerce and global trade, and the technologies that helped drive them in the past and will help change them in the future. It is a story of the changing ways that we connect and communicate - from tribes in the jungles of Africa to the Agora in Athens. Finding new paths and ocean lanes that connected the Roman empire, and the silk road from the East. From there, global empires emerged during the age of exploration. New forms of government, business and other organizations created emerging democracies and transnational capitalism. And now we are a world connected — but often distracted — by social media and the truly infinite amount of content that AI can generate. So, how do we adapt? 

In short: we need to listen to each other. Not just with our ears but with every cell of our bodies! And, that's just the start.

We need to embody our unique value proposition as humans in the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others, face to face and in the moment. If we learn to do that authentically and impactfully — true to ourselves and grounded in reality, there’s hope! Learning to do that well requires Purposeful Play — to master the facts and to play a trustworthy role in the communities we seek to co-create with others. (See my Purposeful Play posts for more.)

Part of the path to that shining city is to play our roles artfully. This isn’t about pretending to be something we’re not. As good actors know, the task is to allow the true parts of yourself to emerge in the roles you play. And, to do that in a win-win way. For an actor, that means learning your lines, hitting your marks, and working with the other actors on stage to embrace what arises in the moment. For the rest us, it means spending a lifetime learning how to be ‘ourselves’ in a way that serves us and those with whom we work in the real world!  

Once, our sphere of influence was bounded by the reach afforded of our legs and our voices. Now our reach is practically limitless. We created communities through the stories we told first face to face then in writing on stone and stories in word, in poetry, in song, and in theater. Now, technology offers an illusion of connection that makes challenges of actually caring about each seem less important. Now, with trust in institution after institution continuously approaching new lows, it’s time to turn a corner. It’s time to evolve. A grandiose aspiration? I’d call it a simple necessity.

We are adaptable creatures and we can do it. All we need to do is evolve our stories and our selves together. And, again, that is possible but only if we come out of our habitual comfort zones, mastering our presence, our words, and our ability to tell stories that touch an essential part of our humanity, through the artful use of words and poetry and melody and movement. So, let’s put the arts to work, embodying our intrinsic creativity to fix our selves and our communities. 

Let’s do it!

++Thanks to Stewy's Stencils for this picture of a Banksy(?!) image