Community as Individuals

By Derek Pettinelli
Creativity + Social Change, University of Connecticut
Waterbury, Connecticut

Community as individuals is a metaphor that I feel is very relevant as it shows that there is a mass that is made up of smaller parts. Everybody is a part of a community and while many people try and separate themselves into smaller groups, divided by race or class, I think that’s irrelevant as we are all humans and all must work together for the betterment of society. A community without individuals is not a community; it’s just a lot of abandoned space and emptiness has no way of progressing itself unless there are proactive individuals who work together.

Communities include the people in them, because the people make everything else -- the businesses, the parks, the newspapers, the TV news, etc. Without individual people to keep the “wheels turning,” society will grind to a halt and be left barren, in literal and figurative senses. From a basic perspective, people, who are hopefully individuals, are the community, or rather the facet that binds the community together. They are the wheels on the bicycle that allow for movement, forward movement.

Having the idea of community as individuals is a viewpoint that touches base with everybody involved and conversely, everybody who isn’t involved. Individuals are part of a community whether they like it or not -- from a community being a man-made one, with boundaries and taxes, to a community being one of like-minded individuals who, for example, enjoy watching sports. All of these people are a part of a community and the ultimate goal is to have them be active members working for the benefit of the community, instead of passively and even selfishly watching the world pass them by. The idea of community matters because people are a part of something cohesive, something that is bigger than them. It is imperative that people “get involved” and that helps not only promote individuality and creative, progressive thinking, but it strengthens the community.

The implications of viewing a community as a group of individuals is one that puts responsibility on the individual. Taking responsibility for one’s own actions and using that to focus on societal betterment is important, because I think that is what people should be doing. Everyone has an effect on the world around them, whether they like it or not, and that’s why I feel that people should use energy to be pro-active. The golden rule is something that is almost ageless, a ubiquitous sense of “the proper way to act.” Treating others the way you wish to be treated is unfortunately a foreign concept in many ways and viewing the community as individuals helps hammer home that concept, making people aware of their actions and subsequently the consequences that follow.

Changes made as a result of this have overwhelming potential to be positive for the community and thus individuals. Simply being pro-active in such a way that affects somebody else is incredibly important. I firmly believe in the concept of “paying it forward,” where I do good things for people in the hopes that they will reciprocate positive actions for other people in the hopes of creating a butterfly effect of positivity. The greatest change starts with the smallest action and even the smallest acts of positivity have the potential for great ramifications. With this information, one can be proactively positive, which is the best that we can be, because to quote Gandhi: “We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.”