What sorts of community would I prefer to cultivate?

Creatives, interesting people... artists who focus on the human condition and whose work permeates with the essence of life... and not "systemic upkeep personnel" unless they're restaurant workers and those who feed others.

Cousin B and her family's success and status are the product of determined restaurant work... and a loving, family mentality toward their employees and coworkers.

Aside from them, well...

Healthcare workers, mental healthcare professionals, teachers, care providers… our family has a “lake house” which was hand-built by our grandfather. He also built our uncle’s place down the road and they’re all laid to rest at the Catholic church just down the main road; a steady reminder of their integral community presence when driving in.

I completely oppose substance use, alcohol consumption, marijuana, cigarettes or any form of nicotine… but the house now has a dry bar across an entire wall.

When I think about it, the power of conservative dominance changed quite a lot about the place. We once opened our doors for everyone… and our aunt and uncle lived there a few times. Our cousin was offered a room in the place a few times when facing hardship. That family is socially non-partisan yet they work in police, fire, healthcare and have many friends who are nurses and once spent quite a bit of time there… back when Disney painted the walls instead of a narcissistic last name etched mirror across a dry bar. We spent about 10 years discussing how a Lake Columbia map would go over the bar.

...if it were ever constructed.

There was a basement flood over the winter, after someone forgot to shut off the main line for the hose.

So, renovations began and the downstairs bathroom was beautified with a glass shower and we installed geothermal heat and an instant water heater.

What sort of community would I like to bring there? The same we had there when our family lived in and around the place… not “party people” but those who did celebrate life and offered theirs to care for it. People who needed rest in well-deserved pauses.

What would I like to be? I’d like to be a wholesome, expressive and creative photographer. I want to invest my time, money and energy into creating beautiful celebrations of life and occasionally photograph people in positions I respect… caring for others… not holding guns or drugs.

Perhaps I hold too much ire for any community who proudly declare themselves “warriors” or treat everything like it’s a competition.

If this is to be the state of things… I want not to be involved.

“If this is social. I’m the anti-social.” ~ Davey Havok for XTRMST

Self-reflection once more... the product of lonely nothingness in winter winds

I find it problematic that I was a Boy Scout for 10 years of my childhood, then I fell in love with feminist music, like Le Tigre and Emilie Autumn in my late teens... and one of my favorite bops was Don't Go by Fefe Dobson. ...favorite artists were P!nk and Evanescence while I wasn't brooding with My Chemical Romance, AFI, Nine Inch Nails or A Perfect Circle and any number of niche artists like HIM, Type O Negative or a selection of Punk artists.

...and I'm still surrounded by community which contrasts the whole interdependent message of all such music, when you break it down to core values and intention.

I've never been one to support collective division like I see in this country, today. Sure, I listened to the song Proud To Be An American but that was also always on the same burned CDs as I'm Afraid of Americans by Bowie and Reznor. I've also been compiling a rather comprehensive playlist of music for about 20 years, which points to the flaws in how this country commands and divides with money, resource restriction and bigotry.

It's a reminder to have empathy and healthy doubt.

...and I don't want children.

There's an article I read a while ago titled "The Childfree Are Ungovernable" and that examines reasons that I agree with... childfree people are more individualistic and unpredictable. They don't throw every penny into raising and caring for kids. Sometimes they start small businesses, sometimes they travel, sometimes they start and manage volunteer organizations, sometimes they build creative startups which thrive or fail and sometimes they live on a ranch with a thousand animals.

Of course, just as parents, sometimes they fall victim to societal stress, social pressures, drugs, substances and alcoholism which spirals them into self-destructive places of pity and premature death.

We have far too many people who agree when someone says, "Everybody's doing it" and who jump on the bandwagon when someone says, "Nobody does that." ...impossible absolutes.

Harmful by nature; restrictive and invalidating.

There's far more possibility in this world than many are willing to acknowledge, let alone accept.

I still believe in us. I believe we're able to enact social change and societal healing by working with one another in curious and empathic ways.