Community Starts with Openness and Love

I've been surprised to find out that, since my amazing experience of the oneness of everything and me a few weeks ago, the love, the awesomeness, the perfectness of all that is, the perfect suited-ness of my life history and all the pain and frustration I've been through to lead me to that awareness--since then I've still been able to get frustrated, sad, bummed out, or feeling like I'm missing something. I watched a video last night of Jim Carrey talking about how he had that wonderful moment of realization after he had been reading Eckhart Tolle...and now he has been spending every day trying to get back there again! And that it comes and goes like riding a wave. It does.

But I have at least learned how to handle the frustration a lot better. Now, I can go into the sadness, not blaming it on anything, just knowing that's what I was meant for at that moment, repeating to myself that "this is a perfect moment"--this is *still* a perfect moment. And that's a lot better than beating myself up.

But the frustration still seems related to the same issues. Going into it, I know that I feel isolated, immobile, resourceless. Even though eternity is every moment, and all of the immensity of universal experience is me.

So, if I'm feeling that way, what's it about? What's the usefulness of that feeling, where is it leading me to?

The fact is that we haven't yet built the community and communities that are our destiny, our birthright, our work, our joy. We're starting it for sure--Evolver is that if anything--but there's so much left to do and many of us still feel a gut-wrenching, heart-aching absence of it. To be fed and to feed, to give help and receive help, to unlock our own and each other's creative energy and potential.

This is above all a message to myself--a being linked to each and every one of you, who are all expressions reflecting myself back to me and vice-versa. What am I doing to create community? Not much. In my defense I'm in a spot right now where I can't seem to get anywhere and don't have resources. But that's not such a good excuse--we create not just by what we have, but by our intentions. So what am I doing to *invite* that community? Am I still keeping walls up around myself?

For so long now, we've been listening and participating in the debate about whether the internet helps to connect us or isolates us. In any debate like that, the answer is often both. It's not so much a double-edged sword as a mirror. If we want to, if we have the intention, we can use resources like Evolver to connect and commune in real life in real ways. Or our intentions based on fear of the anonymous "other" out there can keep us separated, keep the internet a place for isolation and anonymity.

I want it to be for connection. I'm starting by putting my name on my Evolver profile. I used to not put my name on *anything* on the internet. I was involved with violent-leaning radical politics and I was very paranoid. I felt the eyes of authorities watching me all the time; I was afraid of who knew what about me. When I encountered real loving communities, I hid behind my wall because I couldn't relate, even though it was what I really wanted. I was isolating myself so much and then feeling terrible about how isolated and anonymous I felt.

Now my only politics are Radical Love--and I don't need to do that anymore. I only want to share love now, and that's what I should start expecting in return! But to open to it, I have to be open about myself. You have to know me, by name. No more Guy Fawkes mask. It's me, Joey. Please tell me who you are! And let's make our communities.

Love,

Joey