a story... about community

have been thinking.... about dis-ease, community, and being a meningful member of community. and this story evolves from that.
really like following the analogy of what occurs within your bloodstream when a foreign substance enters it. If your body fails to recognize it as a foreign substance ( like a virus) your cells end up incorporating it...pretty soon you are churning out more viruses as the RNA replicates itself...when you recognize a part of your body, however, as an invasive
substance you develop an autoimmune response and pretty soon are sneezing hacking and wheezing, suffering arthritis, or destroying your own tissues.

A story:

The Road was Red

on which the little one found itself flowing swiftly to an unknown destination. the features strange communities of others not that un alike busy functioning, creating, breathing feeding as one living entity. A tissue of existing ways and means.. The drumming flow quickly transported the little one hither and yon in quick surges with a contingent of others of different shapes, and sizes swiftly moving toward unknown destinations along different paths.
The surge slowed and the tide brought him up against another, larger, older one..reaching he held fast and allowed the flow to move on past. finally an anchor of sorts amidst this orchestrated throbbing chaos..The older one recognizing a fellow being brought the little one close..they reached for each other and slowly the little one merged with the skin of the
other..becoming one in substance.uniting in flesh. the older provided the little one with sustenance and a place to rest against the tide.. The little one quickly began to unfold..its core becoming laced with the flesh of the other..joining its thoughts and path with the other..the older not recognizing the thoughts as foreign embraced them and took them for its own
incorporating them in to its very being...allowing the purpose of the other to become its own..the production of the older became more and more bent toward fulfilling the purposes of the other..until finally...replicas of the first invader were released onto this surging red road..and another virus entered the blood stream...



Above was written on the heels of another thought.had watched a short 2 minute film loop of healthy, living lung tissue. Each cell on the screen projected a small extension of protoplasm toward its neighboring cell, and touching withdrew..only to repeat this until all
those other cells within reach had been touched. In turn, each of these reaches as well. The tissue was healthy, it communicated, it existed with the knowledge that each of its parts knew its place and function and purpose..and fulfilled this purpose of exchanging gases and fuel.

A second film loop displayed a cancerous growth. This malignant cell crouched larger than its neighbors in the middle of the slide..it shivered with Brownian movement..but was out of communication with its neighbors. No extensions of self extended in a dance of life to any other cell in its neighboring area. It sate alone taking in nutrients and swelling its self serving membranes with the substances flowing around it..but gave nothing back in terms of function or community ..it existed at the expense of the tissue, not for the good of this small living community..and no other lung cell reached toward it..

do believe that the answers to community already exist in the world around us, they are there to be found if one only searches for them..