Community Breathes In, Breathes Out.

2013.01.017 Communities Breathe In, Breathe Out
Communities, like any civilization or organization, are born, live, and fade. To focus on how communities live, one must consider how they breathe.
As persons enter a community, they are drawn in with long, life-giving breath. The lungs of gathering fill and persons interact intensely, vibrantly, like tiny little oxygen molecules do their tiny dance. And just when it seems like the lungs of gathering can’t hold a single more person, yet another is breathed in, and another, and another.
Communities also breathe out. Persons leave gatherings for many reasons. Time, distance, disagreement, misunderstanding, shift in passion, unplanned or uncontrollable disruption. When a community breathes out it doesn’t mean it’s dead. When a community is at its peak capacity and starts the slow leak or even the blustering gale scattering its members, it can feel like death because it isn’t “what it used to be.”
But that’s how community works.
We are breathed in, we are breathed out. When we

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How Companies Should Respond II: Government Edition

Last week I wrote about Minute Maid’s clever, Ghostbusters reference-laden response to my request to bring back Ecto-Cooler. Seems like it’s not only corporations who are giving out clever responses. So is the government. In December, a petition of a required 25,000+ names went forward to the White House to ask them to build a … Read more

Why do improv festivals?

I’ve returned from the Gainesville Improv Festival a little tired and a lot satisfied. First some diary, then some reflection: I ended up doing two shows, one “Uncle Ukulele” and one jam. My solo performance on Thursday had some fun highlights and while I don’t believe it was the best show I’ve done, it picked … Read more