individual neighbours separated actual self

• family I won’t accept these simple opposites—either individual self in control or a totalitarian , mindless mob. This kind of fantasy keeps us afraid of community . It locks us up inside our separate selves all alone and longing for connection. In fact, the idea of surrendering to the fascist mob is the result of the separated self. It’s the old Apollonian ego, aloof and clear, panicked by the dionysian flow
• It’s not individuals coming together and connecting, and it’s not a crowd. community to me means simply the actual little system in which you are situated, sometimes in your office, sometimes at home with your furniture and your food and your cat, sometimes talking in the hall with (a neighbour). In each case your self is a little different, and your true self is your actual self, just as it is in each situation, a self among, not a self apart.
• it’s absolutely necessary for our spiritual life today to have community where we actually live. ... I think for the maintenance of the world that other kind of local community requires regular servicing. And that’s a very unpleasant, hard thing to stay with, to realise how much service one needs to perform—not for an old, distant friend, but for the people ...
• self-sufficient villages not families
• convivo ergo sum