Editor's Note: I have several ideas for what might influence our definitions of community. Today, I want to share context from my life that has developed how I think about the topic and why it is a core value of mine. This week’s newsletter is more personal than most of my posts on Stories by Shiv. In the coming weeks, I will share the research that I’ve done to better understand community objectively.
Tangentially related — I’m testing a bi-weekly cadence for a while. Let me know what you think!
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2020 really emphasized the value of community. Of finding our tribes.
For me, this meant spending nearly all waking hours with my parents and maybe 8 other people outside of that.
It really made me think: what even is community? How might my definition of it differ from yours? Why does the difference exist in the first place?
At this point, I have more questions than answers. While I’ve only recently begun to research this topic, I have thought about community for a long time. This is because I’ve learned that the way I was raised is very different from many of my friends and colleagues. I have a “for the team” mentality that is definitely not the American norm when it comes to social interaction.
Why I’m So “For the Team”
I come from a large, immigrant Indian family. My dad has 4 siblings, my mom has 6. Including everyone’s kids and grandkids, there are at least 100 people that I would for sure have to invite to my wedding. Even though they both are the youngest of their families, my parents were among the first to make the move to the US. In the late 90’s and mid-2000s, the rest of my aunts, uncles and cousins started moving to the US as well.
This created a very village-style approach to how me, my brother, and all of my cousins were raised. There is anywhere from a 1.5 - 30 year age difference between us. We had a minimum of three generations weighing in on our lives at all times.
Growing up, my cousins and I would spend every weekend together. Our days were filled with running passes on the football field and endless hours of dribbling up and down the nearest basketball court. ‘Going hard in the paint’ has a whole new meaning when you’re 10 and your 18 y/o male cousin is ready slam the sh*t out of you.
Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time dinner rolled around. When my older cousins learned to drive in the US, we’d pick up late night Taco Bell and squeeze next to each other to watch the latest Bollywood movie that one of them torrented. Our entertainment was cheap and we loved it. Nothing mattered more than being together.
There were even extended periods of time where multiple families were living under one roof — 10 people in a two-bedroom apartment. During one of these periods, I remember playing in the park behind our home.
I introduced my cousins as my brothers and sisters to the other playground kids, only to be made fun because they could never conceive of how a cousin could be considered a sibling. Maybe they thought I was stupid. Maybe they thought I was foreign. All I know is that while I thought I was missing something back then, I realize now that they are the ones that were missing something.
They were lacking the experience of being raised by a tribe.
Tribal Operation
The reason I say this was a unique upbringing is not because my family was so close knit. Or that we spent so much time together. This experience of how I was actively raised by not only my parents, but also aunts, uncles, and older cousins is unique because it is representative of tribal communities.
In a tribe there is no separation between generations and family lines. Everything — from your home and money to your relationships and time — is shared. Your value comes from what you give and your dishonor comes from what you don’t. Living in a tribe is something that we have moved away from in modern society, shifting to a stronger focus on the nuclear family.
However, the need for tribal operation is deeply human. It is the way societies have lived for the majority of human existence. For this reason, even though we may not have natural tribes that we are born into anymore, we still seek to create or find them. We build community around race, religion, alma mater, hometown, etc.
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With this context, I hope you’ll join me in the coming weeks as I explore a few headlining questions about community:
If you have thoughts on community or have come across valuable resources in understanding community, I would love to hear from you. You can respond directly to this email if you’re reading from your inbox or reach out to me on Twitter @Shiv_InChi.
See you in 2 weeks,
Shiv