Loving my community!

Being part of a community, and even more importantly feeling like you are part of a community is one of the most important aspects of life.

All sorts of studies show, from all kinds of disciplines, that those who feel ostracised and left out are most prone to anti-social and even violent and aggressive behaviour. My own discipline (criminology) demonstrates this time and again - often also showing that society's responses to the core problem of not feeling like I belong often compounds the situation by criminalising the activities of those on the margins.

But community can exist on many levels. I am lucky to be part of a really great neighbourhood. I have mentioned in an earlier post that when all our kids were younger, it really was like sesame street, with little muppets running around all over the place. Our close-knit community grew slowly, evolving over time. When we first moved in, over a decade ago now, we only occasionally engaged with our neighbours. But even then, we enjoyed a Christmas drinks gathering every year.

By the time we were all having kids at the same time (total coincidence), we already were more than neighbours with many of the crew. And since that time, enabled by the growing bonds of our kids, we have become closer and closer.

I really appreciate that I live in such a brilliant community.

But I also recognise that not everybody else does.

And it's here that we can see technology enabling growing communities, and the all-important sense of belonging in people who otherwise may not be connected.

Facebook and Twitter may have began it in their ways.

But steemit is running with it. And like the organic growth of my neighbourhood community, is seeing organic, from the ground up, development of communities.

Teamaustralia is a classic example, but others are blooming too - check out this @communitynews post (and follow and resteem it! https://steemit.com/community/@communitynews/community-news-communities-are-go).

This is a special kind of awesome, enabled by steemit, but actioned by us. The steemit community.

Steem on!

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Image by @pixabay.com. Steem image enabled by fellow steemits! Mashed by @drwom.

@DrWom and #teamaustralia footers by the fabulous @ryivhnn