THE Communal Study

Season Two, 001: Revisited

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder”

Something happened over the last 5 months…or rather, something didn’t happen.

We didn’t write a single Communal Study newsletter………………………………

But we’re coming back to it with a fresh perspective. In coming back, we reflected on why writing came so easy before & why the desire waned a little bit as life happened over the course of the year. It’s not that we felt we’d covered all we needed to. At the beginning, it felt as if there were infinite things to discuss in regards to community. There probably are. More on this later.

(Ayodeji) My circle of community grew to a place where I wasn’t solely emphasizing one or two particular friendships, in which the receiving parties may have felt inundated with conversations and practices revolving around strengthening the friendship. (Too much of a good thing isn’t always good—cheesy but true). Now I can bring more people into that shared ideal, lessening the intensity on any individual relationship. To state it visually, instead of buying a pizza and expecting one or two people to help me finish it, I’m inviting more people to the table. Some people will eat 4 slices, some will just try a bite of my slice, but the pizza is finished all the same. Not everyone wants or needs the same thing out of a friendship. Diversifying the types of friendships & sometimes the quantity of friendships can help manage expectations. 

(Roger) Thinking about the last 5 months is interesting for me because I don’t feel like I have necessarily made any new “deep” friendships. In the same way as Ayodeji, I have diversified the types of friends that I have. I’ve grown content having a friend that I see every other week when I go to a particular place and we just catch up in 5 minutes. I’ve grown content having a large group of friends I see every week playing soccer or volleyball. I used to think there was no point in getting a dinner with someone, or another couple, if we weren’t going to “actually” be friends. But now I think, who cares? We may continue a friendship or we may not, either way, I can expect a good time at dinner & the potential of a continued friendship. What I can say is true, is that there is a deep satisfaction with the people in my life right now. I am happy to see everybody that I see and look forward to my weeks as they come. 

We both are not sure there was an exact science to get to this particular point but there is a natural effect “longevity in a place” has on community. We believe wholeheartedly in the things we’ve discussed & there is great importance in examining things when they linger in your heart. This particular newsletter marks the beginning of a new season in The Communal Study, one where we take things as they come and enjoy the community available to us. 

There are things that we talk about with each other almost every week but they didn’t feel “big” enough to chronicle them into a newsletter. What we are realizing now is that is just life right now and that the things we talk about can probably still apply to many different people. 

In a nutshell, going forward every newsletter you can expect to read something related to community but also some situational experiences that we’ve dissected and semi-come to a conclusion about. 

i.e. This season will be about Fortnite strategy and Emergency Intercom and if you don’t like that unsubscribe bitch….respectfully.