Community building is a wonderfully complex process that contains many layers and elements. One of these elements are relationships, in all shapes and forms: between family members, between friends, between lovers, between coworkers, between store workers and customers, between people who regularly commute together, etc. There are many ways to reinforce each of these relationships… Read More Building a House (and a Community) With Cards
On the positive end of the continuum, a great community can take all its members to places they never dreamed possible. There are different definitions of a community and, as access to the internet is increasing to more and more people around the world, more of our brethren have the ability to go online and,… Read More And so, it Begins: Some thoughts on NaNoWriMo
While I strongly believe and have been participating in “IRL” community building efforts, I am still relatively new to online community building efforts. I tried out NaNoWriMo in 2008, but other than meeting a few people and writing quite a lot, I didn’t really get into the NaNoWriMo community. When the show was live, I… Read More Learning to Use Online Communities Efficiently: My First Bloggiesta Blogging Experience
It has been a couple of years since The X-Files ended… OK, fine, it has been more than a “couple” of years, but I still avidly look for anything related to the show. Thanks to the wonderful World Wide Web, there is always something new. I recently rediscovered a commentary on the show written a… Read More Dana Scully’s Real Journey: Arising To Help Humanity despite the Steep Price
Have you ever watched the flow of traffic in a heavily frequented area from a high vantage point? No one vehicle is more important that the other; all must pass. As soon as one vehicle thinks of itself as more important and tries to get ahead of itself, it causes some sort of backlog. In… Read More No, Really, The Queen is not the Only Reason You Won that Chess Game
In recent weeks, there has been an increasing number of negative comments on my Tumblr dashboard, my Twitter and Facebook feeds, and in the various opinion blogs I follow about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding choices, especially when it came to light that they are standing to make a lot of money off their… Read More We can also Profit from their Wedding: Why We Should not Talk Negatively about Kim and Kanye’s Big Day
As some of you have gently reminded me over the last few weeks, I have not posted anything here since 20 November 2013. That’s a 24 week absence, a portion of which has been spent reflecting on writing in the context of the advancement of the individual and the community. As long time readers of… Read More Does Writing Fiction Contribute to Personal and Community Development? (I hope so…)
As a blogger, I have gone through many phases. A recent one was defined by anger at the various and unfortunately numerous forms of injustice that exist. Long-time readers have commented on it before, and it has led to many an interesting, if not heated, discussion. While anger might light a fire in someone’s heart… Read More Reaching Over the Anger: Building on a Common Desire
A lot of people, when they think about intensity, think this: Or this: Leave it to the British to make panicking look this elegant. So let me start this post by giving an example that reflects what I mean by the word “intense”: the last month before a week long international event, the planning… Read More Don’t Pull Your Hair Out Just Yet: There Is Something to be Said about Intensity
Engendering Equality wrote a post last year about the sustainability of anger as the force behind social mouvements. Anger, it reads, is a very interesting emotion. (…) In one regard, if you take a look at the current state of the world today, how can you not become angry? (…) Yet at the same time… Read More Of What Use Art Thou, Anger, in Contributing to the Fight against Injustice?