~ Ora na azu nwa ~
Fab!Hubby and I have been blessed to spend our adolescent, young adult, and early marriage years within a support community full of love, acceptance, safety and diversity. This group of friends, guides, and mentors are not necessarily our family… they are the people we chose to love us and guide us in our transition into adult hood, married life and parenting… and these are the people that now make up the village helping to raise our children.
Karl and I have often talked about how there is no way we could live the life we have without the support of our village. We as a family – each of us individually – are better off with the collective influence and love we find within our village.
I, as a mom, would not be as happy, inspired, grounded and loving if were not for the help and guidance I find within this group. Grateful is the word to describe how I feel… but I think it would have to glow and blink and leep off the screen and hug you and leave a trail of glitter behind to really do justice in describing how grateful I am to our village.
I work within the world of marketing, PR, design, social media… and at the root of it I spend a heck of a lot of time online. I got started building sites to pay for college and left with a degree I have yet to use professionally, a love affair with the web, and the know-how to land a job you couldn’t even go to school for. And here I am – 13 years later – still in love with the web… and man, has it changed.
There are people who will say and studies that will prove that the amount of time we spend engaged with multi-media is disconnecting us… and I think that there is truth to that… I believe there comes a time to turn the cell phone off and actually be at the table having dinner with a friend – the world can wait. I also believe, passionately believe, that the Internet is a tool bringing us into connection with each other in ways that 10 years ago were hardly imaginable.
This past springs post by Her Bad Mother is an amazing example of this… here is one woman, writing one blog post, that connected moms all over the world… if I EVER had a moment where I felt alone in the world of mothering this would certainly help me to see I am in good company. (Yes, she had lots of inspiration and help… that’s the point of a village)
Call me a bleeding heart liberal, or a hippie, or a new age-er, or a pie in the sky ridiculously, hopeful optimist… I believe the Internet will help to heal the world. I see it give disenfranchised groups a voice, I see it help inventors and entrepreneurs with world changing products find their niche, I see children here in the US and in remote villages across the world connect to each other and to the whole wide world, I see people who would never cross the room to talk to each other for all the things that make them different – connect online for all the things that make them same.
I for one have found healing around a miscarriage, hope when my brother was deployed to Iraq, peace in a recipe that makes my dinner hour less hectic, laughter on days when I wanted to turn my back on the world, inspiration on days the blank canvas was overwhelming, serenity on days of turmoil, chore charts on days I wanted to pull my and my kiddos’ hair out for the toothpaste on the counter AGAIN… I have found beauty and heartache, joy and sadness… I have found lost best friends from high school… and quirky new favorite artists.
I see the Internet as this amazing tool of serendipity, connection and healing. Sure – just like the twice the size of Texas – floating island of trash in the Pacific (which you can see thanks to the magic of them there inter-webs) – there is a ton of crap online. And just like life – I chose to give all my energy and focus to the good in it.
This week is the Mom 2.0 Summit – and I am moderating a panel where some very lovely, smart, connected women will be sharing about their experiencing with cyber-villages. If you are attending the conference – I look forward to seeing you in the panel and connecting with you and hearing your thoughts on cyber-villages. If you are not attending – I would love to read your thoughts right here… leave a comment… tell me what ya think… share one of your favorite experiences from your online support community. I wanna read ’em!
JJ – I totally hear what you’re saying. The internet IS a series of cyber villages. I used to be active in the Cat Blogging Community (this is a serious community, folks!) but haven’t been as involved this past year. The community is made up of folks that blog in the voice of their cat. Some cats are more eloquent than others (this started way before lolcats). It’s a very active and do many things together for the greater good – raise money for pets or animals in need, raise awareness for causes, provide support for other members in the community who may be grieving a lost pet. There were ups and downs, break ups and make ups among the community. I definitely felt the support from this community through events in my life like losing my dog, illness in my immediate family, job searching and the birth of my daughter. Cyber villages exist. It just so happens that my village was comprised of cat loving folks!
Kerry – Ha! Love it… love to know that there are villages out there based on the platform of… well… anything! The more and more I fall in love with those crazy kittens we have been blessed with… the more I think this may be a community for me!
I completely agree with you – I have found a lot of what I needed from other people, be it support, encouragement, reassurance, strength, even criticism, from communities online. Each person making his or her mark in cyberspace has incidentally somehow helped me make mine. The Internet is the real embodiment of the adage, “Love is blind.”
Last year, I made the move from Dallas to Houston in sort of a “leap of faith” in my personal and professional life. Everything from finding an apartment, getting tips on moving the cat, to finding a new job, happened online. The support of my online community got me through the transition when I was feeling lost in a new place. I kept saying to myself “How did people do this without the web???”
I am grateful for sure!
Love this post JJ,
Not only does the internet provide us more mature “kids” with community, I daily realize our kids are being raised by their own digital village. As much as I love going to the internet and instantly finding answers to weird questions such as how to build a rain barrel, replace a gas regulator on a propane tank, and how to find the coolest new apps for an iPhone… this is still new to me in some ways. Our kids inherently know the internet as part of their life and will be raised by cyber-villages. They find resources (hope, answers, connections) they can’t always get at home. Growing up as a kid today must be so much more overwhelming, but hopeful at the same time.
For this, I am grateful there are groups who will watch and protect our kids when they don’t always have the answers available at home. They know there is a connection out there for every emotion and feeling. I have a huge love for the cyber-villages we don’t even know about or know are needed. I am equally impressed with the villages we do see and how we all get to participate. Thanks for bringing up the topic. I love knowing that whatever I may face tomorrow, there is someone in the village who has experienced it before and can offer help, advice, or just a bit of understanding. Even more, I love being able to give something back on occasion. I Love being in so many villages!
Oh wow. Cyber community is a topic very special to me – from the amazing group that swooped up and took me in when I first arrived back in Houston a year ago to my most dear friends the degenerate gamblers that I hit Vegas with every year. Those folks continue to amaze me with their warm hearts and generous spirts. Friendships that likely never would have happened if not for the internet; friendships I would not be the woman I am today without.
I love that we are a true village helping each other out, as people, as friends. I have found great restaurants based on detailed reviews from a huge cross-section of diners – and avoided others! I have had my writing critiqued by hundreds of authors and readers for no other purpose than to help me improve. And have found countless stories by other harried mothers of teens to help me through those moments of “what do I do now??” None of these people were paid to help me. But the collective sharing of experiences and knowledge continues to be a valuable resource.
What a beautiful privilege to arrive in a supportive, encouraging village. Whether this journey is luck (to be born into it) or the result of conscientious effort (to build it by adding in wonderful people), the destination is essential to our ability to succeed, in all the very many meanings of that word.
In our Mom 2.0 panel, I talked about The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin (amazon quote by way of explaining briefly, “…the central paradox of human existence is, and has always been, the conflict between empathy and entropy: while globalization brings together diverse people, the very good-a rise in “empathic awareness”-is counterbalanced by the very bad-“dramatic deterioration of the health of the planet,” by way of the technology that drives progress..”)
It’s a long, complicated discussion, but in an article, Rifkin wrote, “By extending the central nervous system of each individual and the society as a whole, communication revolutions provide an evermore inclusive playing field for empathy to mature and consciousness to expand.”
I think we continue to build and expand our cybervillages — and I think this goes towards answering why women blog, why anyone blogs, and why we turn so to social media for interaction – because it is, by and large, where we find our empathy.
By that, I mean it is where we find our own for others, others’ empathy for ourselves, and examples of empathic success and failure. It’s an incredible medium that provides a spectacular view.
I know people use and interact with it differently — some little, some too much — but most of us take what we grow and develop online into our corporeal lives, too.
Personally, I find it has been a blessing.
Fayza – Reminds of one my FAV! quotes from Marianne Williamson, “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
Caitlin – And I am SOOOO grateful you moved to Houston… who else would loan me cool Mad-Men necklaces for #mom2summit parties & Wii Mario-cart for family fun nights???
Jonti – SO true! “I love knowing that whatever I may face tomorrow, there is someone in the village who has experienced it before and can offer help, advice, or just a bit of understanding.” It does bring me peace of mind knowing my search for answers is not limited to the collected knowledge of the people I know offline.
April – and I love that you can, any of us can, maintain relationships in close and connected way – even though we are geographically very far apart.
“None of these people were paid to help me.” – Rachel… so, so, so true. I give of myself online knowing that I am totally paying it forward. The tid-bit I share that inspires someone – or makes their life a little easier… it totally coming back around to me.
Julie… THANK YOU – I have been racking my brain to remember the sources we discussed in the panel… putting them on the to read list right now!
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