What’s stopping you from organizing and/or developing a community in your local area?
I do not mean this as a rhetorical question: I mean it literally. Tell us what’s stopping you! I don’t want to invalidate you, but the opposite. I’m sure people here would love to help if it’s possible. Post away!
Personally, I think Covid and the general amount of work everyone does are the two biggest obstacles to community building. Not just for me, but everybody I know. It’s nearly impossible to build a community when nobody has the energy to even play a video game together, and actually meeting up in person can literally kill you. There are definitely solutions, but we need to realize them as problems first to find them. If you have suggestions, please share them! Same goes for the issues everyone else shares (if they’re ok with help, of course).
I'm in a pretty good org, but I haven't been active in over six months. I've had a lot of mental health problems, anxiety, depression, probably ADHD, which for some reason have been holding me back a lot more recently than they used to. I wanted to take a break from being involved in the org and sort out my mental health first, but now I'm thinking that being active, learning, putting myself out there, taking in responsibility is how I'm going to sort myself out. I've been really anxious about being perceived as someone disagreeable and have always been very averse to confrontation, so I think I need to face down these fears. So when I get back after the holidays, I want to be active again
Good luck, you can do it! There's nothing wrong with being a stubborn, disagreeable motherfucker if you're doing it on behalf of the poor and oppressed and you're driven by a love for the people. I was very shy and conflict-averse when I started organising but the more I've done and seen, and the more I've become aware of how terribly my friends and neighbours are treated by capitalism, the less I've had time for compromise and being "reasonable" with the exploiting class and their lackeys.