Time, being an ingredient as is water to a young seedling. Once sown, it is nurtured and slowly grown. This is nurturing a relationship.
Opposite is this current age of instant gratification, quick hits and faux friends. These social apps that have done nothing but unnaturally quantify aspects of tribal approval, or have created strange ‘gamified’ rituals, continuing its stranglehold of addiction on users on behalf of your friends followed list. This binary switch of ‘click for follow,’ or easily disposable, or ‘mutable,’ are hardly anything like the social engagements that happen in physical space. That specific behavior of ignoring or deleting a friend has real consequences. The ‘easy’ way of tapping out of your uncomfortable social qualms, has bigger repercussions for that act in real life social tribes.
A physical in-person community, vs. an online only virtual network have very fundamental differences. One example of a trivial act in virtual online spaces, vs real life is the act of ghosting: Being the subject ‘ghosting/silent treatment’ only makes time an ingredient that works against us. In that, the hardest part of repairing rifts between distraught relationships are hardly ever attempted, allowing time to go by as if things have changed, allowing self-doubt to brew in the midst of non-communication; essentially disconnecting, continuing a spiral into further loneliness and isolation. The convenience of online ghosting, as digital connections being the weaker type of connection, has a real life detrimental implication if translated in real life social/tribal instances.
Collective strength comes in knowing that challenges we experience together only re-affirm common goals. In that real life social qualms are easier to resolve than the ones that stew and brew in online spaces. The in-person social cues that give us loads of information passed on by human evolution, are contributing factors for the survival of our species for a reason. Combine this with the acceptance that we come from a kaleidoscope of different backgrounds, suddenly there is slack in real life spaces to cultivate this common ground, or empathy for all walks of life.
This quote below reinforces the needs of in-person community and is greatly strengthen by the connection of practiced spirituality. As humans walking through life, going through the ups and downs, the actual reality of people and community in comparison to a virtual type of networking being the clear weaker of the two. The strength is knowing that for whatever reason, as a whole we have believed truths that pull each other out, most especially in times of shared, empathized pits of despair.
Strong communities don’t just magically appear whenever people congregate and communicate. The strongest and most satisfying communities come into being when something lifts people out of the lower level so that they have powerful collective experiences.
They all enter the realm of the sacred together, at the same time. When they return to the profane level, where they need to be most of the time to address the necessities of life, they have greater trust and affection for each other as a result of their time together in the sacred realm. They are also happier and have lower rates of suicide. In contrast, transient networks of disembodied users, interacting asynchronously, just can’t cohere the way human communities have from time immemorial. People who live only in networks rather than communities, are less likely to thrive.
pg. 203 The Anxious Generation – Spiritual Elevation and Degradation