community vs. communal

many things make up a person's identity, and only some of them are we able to control. mine is made up of parents who raised me well, who taught me to think for myself, and to accept the consequences for my decisions. it is also made up of very surface level things like..i am a male...i am married...i am going to be a father in a couple of months...i am white, educated, and middle class. there a lots of things that i could write, but one things consumes me more than others when i consider what i want other people to see in me.

it is this: i care more about being communal than being in a community.

let me explain. the word community comes from the latin meaning to have something in common or shared. it is a passive word. my favorite example is this: you can move into a neighborhood, apartment complex, or any other place of residence and you are in a community. you will have neighbors, yet it will not matter. you will not be required by anyone to care about who those other people around you are. you won't be required to help them in times of struggle or to provide for them on any level. there is no expectation, other than not wanting to be the creepy one on the block, that you will do more than live peacefully where it is you reside. end of story.

but to be communal is a different story altogether. it is to be active at its core. there is no do-nothing-option, because in reality, that is doing something. striving to be communal suggests that you care about something enough to move toward it, and it is my hope that this is positive. indeed there are plenty of things that are communal and yet destructive. however, at its most basic meaning, communal means to be doing things for the common good. which also suggests that it is leaning towards selflessness. (for a more technical image of this you could think about or read about the tragedy of the commons.)

and this ultimately is what i hope people see in me. and if they don't, i wish they knew that i was striving toward this because i believe in the deepest places of my being, that in doing things communally we will truly make the world a better place.