The word count: 1087 Xu wei , Sandra , 219
The Self and Community First of all, I want to say that no matter which place I stay in, I am one member of a community such as family, school, company, friends, and so on. The meaning of community I think is that: people want to achieve some of the features formed through interactive communication, and they gathered to be an organization. I play a role in these communities. And I have different appellations in these communities. These communities help me understand who I am. From one angle, we must recognize that I can’t make up a community alone. If there is no other people’s foil, what I have done can not be meaningful. As the saying goes, a full-blown peony needs green foliage to set it off. I think the relationship between individual and community is similar to this. In Chinese culture, community interests are bigger than individual interests. It is similar to African traditional thought. “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.” This alternative view shifts our very understanding of what it means to be a person. (Person and Community in African Traditional Thought by Ifeanyi A. Menkiti, 1984). The trail which reflects a person has existed is not that he or she was born from mother’s womb. After birth the individual goes through the different rites of incorporation, including those of initiation at puberty time, procreation, old age, death, and entry into the community of departed ancestral spirits before becoming a full person in eyes of the community. And a community viewed as continuous with the community of living man and women, and with which it is conceived as being in constant interaction. Only by this way can a person prove that he or she has existed. Xu wei , Sandra , 219 In order to strive for success, I should achieve a balance between myself and the environment around me. My behavior affects the people and things around me. Of course, contrarily they also impact me. My individual value only can be realized in the community. So, I have to put forward my perspective that the primary influence on individual behavior must be community interests. I believe that if I want to succeed in my life, I have to find equilibrium point between the community and me. I never believe unearned rewards. It means that as long as I pay for my community, I will get reward from it. That is my target. And this is the value I want to realize. However, what I give to the community is not always good, so I may also get bad result from it. It is like the relationship between human and nature. What I want to say is the problem of ecological balance. With the development of global economy, human beings have a serious problem. Our home, our earth is declining. It means that we have asked for too much from nature, and its life is dropping. Trees are overcut. Animals lose their homes. Forest becomes desert. Many species are close to die out. So, human beings and our nature are not balanceable any more. (Varity of life by Stuart L. Pimm & Clinton Jenkins in Scientific American, 2005). If I sneeze in China, it may cause tsunami in the Pacific. This is the Butterfly Effect people think. (Edward Lorenz, 1963). A small sneeze can cause so huge influence, much less the behaviors human have done to nature. If we want to achieve power from nature, we must be kind to it. So, in order to keep human beings and biosphere being balanceable, we must protect our environment. When I am aware of the problem of balance, I will try to make contributions for the community to exchange for what I want. Xu wei , Sandra , 219 The meaning of individual interests is the things which are beneficial to oneself superficially. It includes the satisfaction of material life and spiritual life, health conservation,