What would it be like, I wonder, to belong to a community – a fraternity of like-minded people?

If the community had a common language and fit within some natural, geographic bounds, perhaps we’d call it a “nation.” We’d have words. We’d have symbols. We’d have a way. We’d have ideals that bind us, ideas that make us different from the others.

And what if you found fraternity in opposing them? Or in the hearkening back to another time? Or in a shared vision of the future? How about a faith, a religion, or other system of rule?

And what if you found fraternity in a group with shared secrets, negligence, criminality, conspiracy, or collusion? Where membership grants wild privilege others cannot fathom, but where opposition yields excommunication or even retribution?

How many communities have you belonged to? How many have you encountered? Which shape your reality today?