In writing my blook, I am continually updating posts, often with quotations that I have tripped over while browsing the web, researching some topic or another.
Recently, I was thinking about love and evil and my mind went back to the work of Scott Peck, and so I went to my Gurteen Knowledge website as I knew I had some material there on the subject.
I was right; here was Scotts definition of love. But as I scrolled down, I found more quotes I had clipped over 15 years ago and had long forgotten about including a quote on community that was perfect for the introductory post to my emerging chapter on Community.
Here is the quote, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. So how do you think we can transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures? Is it needed? Is it possible? Personally, I think it is the key to our future and that we start by "talking with each other more".
We know the rules of community; we know the healing effect of community in terms of individual lives.
If we could somehow find a way across the bridge of our knowledge, would not these same rules have a healing effect upon our world?
We human beings have often been referred to as social animals. But we are not yet community creatures.
We are impelled to relate with each other for our survival.
But we do not yet relate with the inclusivity, realism, self-awareness, vulnerability, commitment, openness, freedom, equality, and love of genuine community.
It is clearly no longer enough to be simply social animals, babbling together at cocktail parties and brawling with each other in business and over boundaries.
It is our task - our essential, central, crucial task - to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures.
It is the only way that human evolution will be able to proceed.
Credit: The Different Drum, M. Scottt Peck
