School Gatherings
-
Tuesday Talks
- Tim Annick '12
- Vanessa Lizarraga '12 & Nader Batal '12
- Cody Hamilton '12
- Jose Esqueda '12
- Lela Puckett '12
- Kel Mitchel '12
- Avery Schwartz '12
- Taylor Chatman '12
- Greg Cusack '12 & Austin Lokre '12
- Sarah Cohen '12 & Emma Birrell '12
- Lisa Huang '12 & Megan Cunnane
- Miles Barney '12
- Daniel Mock '12
- Alissa Jared '12
- Adam Werksman '12
- Catherine Thornber '12
- Sierra Trees '12 & Emily Nguyen '12
- Ian Keneally '12
- Annie Weis '12 & Erin Griffin '12
- Charlotte Bowles '12
- Scott Sinclair '12
- Faith Donaldson '12 & Sarah Griffin '12
- Jacob Winnikoff '12
- Michael Warren '12
- Fernando Hurtado '12
- Stephanie Flores '12 & Stephanie Duong '12
- Pom Bunsermvicha '12
- Taylor Erling '12
- Assembly
- Convocations
Tuesday Talk
January 10, 2012
Daniel Mock
To listen to Daniel's Tuesday Talk - click the play button...
This room is not a community. Community is a table, and there is not enough room at a table for 347 people. Community is a collection of commonalities and shared experiences. Community is doing something you want for the people you like. Community, like friendship, is the connection of ephemeral experiences, but community is not simply friendship.
My community lives on a glass table in Glendale, a steel counter behind a dining room, an ashen table cloth near the sea, a creaky barn on the edge of a school, and a patio in a beachy "community". What made community there, was our desire to be there, together. This shared want, is manifested in conversation, experiences, food, or just sitting. We let our animal desires become inclusive to wanting what each other wants. I love to make food. Doing what I love feels best when I am doing it for people I love. Sitting together, sharing each other, is when I am home.
I sometimes get the desire to bring my communities together in some kind of perverse perfection. What I realize now though is that forcibly combining communities together destroys them. In the same way that it is better not to attempt to reconcile pieces of yourself that are by nature mutually exclusive. Forced community will always devolve into obligatory hellos and courtesies. This is why this room is not truly a community. Yes, there are many communities present here, but together we are not a community. We might be happier here if we accepted that our individual communities shouldn't necessarily be shared. Yes our communities share spaces, but that doesn't mean our communities must be totally inclusive. Enjoy the real communities in your life.