{"id":74433,"date":"2026-09-16T22:22:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T20:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=74433"},"modified":"2026-09-16T22:22:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T20:22:59","slug":"the-courage-to-let-yourself-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/the-courage-to-let-yourself-go\/","title":{"rendered":"The Courage to Let Yourself Go"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The question of community has taken on a new sense of urgency today. Never before has it been so easy to stay in touch with someone, yet, at the same time, loneliness and social isolation are widespread. The Section for Inclusive Social Development organized a conference in Lithuania in May entitled \u2018Community in Conversation.\u2019 Here are some reflections.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This conference marks the fourth time participants in the Section\u2019s international network have come together since its inception. People of diverse abilities and skills workshopped and explored the idea of community-building together. It was immediately clear that community does not arise automatically and that digital networking alone does not create a community. People can collaborate or live together for a long time while inwardly remaining strangers to each other. Community emerges once people begin to take a genuine interest in one another, listen to each other, and put themselves in the other person\u2019s shoes. These abilities seem to be what we are losing more and more today. Polarization is on the rise everywhere. Opinions are hardening. Differences are perceived as threats. Others no longer appear as a counterpart or complement to our perspectives but rather as contradictions. However, behind all these phenomena is an intrinsic development of the contemporary world: the wish to determine one\u2019s own life and to think independently. Contemporary people don\u2019t want to be integrated into predetermined frameworks; we want to make our own paths and develop our own convictions. This has fostered many positive outcomes and brought communities face-to-face with a new challenge: How can people develop community while preserving independence?<\/p>\n\n\n

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A Willingness to Engage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This question is particularly important in the context of inclusive social development. For many ages, community was the natural way of life. People lived and worked together for years. Today, individual free will stands in the foreground. The very question at the heart of community is changing. No longer do we simply ask how<\/em> to organize a community, but why<\/em>: Why do people want community in the first place? And what are they willing to contribute to it? In our discussions on these issues, it was not the debate over specific models or concepts that was so striking, but rather the realization that community today requires conscious engagement. Structures and institutions are not enough. Community arises only when people are truly willing to engage with one another. And this willingness and attention have to be rediscovered and renewed in every moment. The necessity for rediscovery and renewal is one of the great challenges of contemporary community-building. Freedom is often initially experienced as setting oneself apart, whereas community requires the ability to build relationships, sustain them, and actively develop them. This doesn\u2019t mean conformity or loss of individuality, rather, community only comes to life when people who are actually different are allowed to be truly present with the qualities of their individual uniqueness. Strong communities need strong individuals. At the same time, individuality does not develop independent of a social context. We need others to better understand ourselves. \u201cThe human being becomes an \u2018I\u2019 through a \u2018You\u2019\u201d (Martin Buber).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions about what it means to be human often arise more immediately in social contexts than in other areas of life. People who require regular assistance pose the fundamental question of social existence as a matter of course: What supports me? What does community mean to me? How does a sense of belonging arise? When does diversity lead to separation, and when does it enrich a shared space? The current debate on inclusion often revolves around dichotomies in that the issues are frequently framed as either<\/em> self-determination or<\/em> community, either participation or care, either individual freedom or<\/em> institutional context. But these dichotomies fail to grasp the whole. Everyone needs freedom and independence as well as<\/em> relationships and a sense of belonging; both aspects are part of every human life. Building community means constantly navigating the middle path between these two poles. Communities need rules and organizational structures, but just as much, they need to be able to cultivate everyday relationships through listening, patience, tolerating differences, and working together to find solutions. Community is not fixed, but is rather constantly created anew through our shared daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wanting to Understand<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

During the conference in Lithuania, the focus was on conversation itself\u2014the earnest effort to actually engage with one another. The diversity of languages made this attempt at mutual understanding a rather palpable experience. It became clear time and again just how rare genuine understanding actually is. Difficulties in having meaningful conversations are becoming more and more obvious. People often simply defend their own position instead of trying to truly understand the other\u2019s. Community only emerges when we succeed in not immediately resolving differences, but in enduring them. This is something deeply rooted in supportive education. Work in supportive education doesn\u2019t just mean care and support; it\u2019s also about how human development is made possible through relationships. We focus not on deficiencies, but on opportunities for development. Even outside the field of supportive education, it\u2019s possible for this idea to find resonance. It\u2019s becoming increasingly evident that it\u2019s not only individuals that need support, but the social processes themselves that must become more infused with learning, listening, and ways of finding paths for further development. The conference was able to highlight a possible way forward through the idea that community can no longer be taken for granted; it must be consciously sought, shaped, and reaffirmed in every moment. This may be what is most important in the future: seeking community, not out of dependence, but out of a free choice to shape it together. Tobias Raedler<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alone in St. Petersburg<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The fourth day without internet in a country where I don\u2019t speak the language: at times, it\u2019s a relief\u2014and yet I can\u2019t shake the longing for contact and connection. It doesn\u2019t feel like freedom; it feels like isolation. Being in a foreign place without feeling connected to home is lonely. I travelled here for the very reason I now feel isolated\u2014because of my connection to the people I want to be in touch with here, with whom I grapple with the same issues as we do back home. And yet I remain a stranger in this land. Resonance and my relationship to the world allow me to experience so much more than just a shared social issue. I need to feel well in myself. And what do I need to feel this self, to feel present as an \u2018I\u2019? Only from that place can I develop an interest in others. How is my inner presence a presupposition for experiencing a sense of belonging? How do I go from being an observer to becoming a participant? Sonja Zausch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Translation<\/strong> Joshua Kelberman
Images <\/strong>Community in Conversation Conference, May 2026, Lithuania. Photos: Private<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question of community has taken on a new sense of urgency today. Never before has it been so easy to stay in touch with someone, yet, at the same time, loneliness and social isolation are widespread. The Section for Inclusive Social Development organized a conference in Lithuania in May entitled \u2018Community in Conversation.\u2019 Here are some reflections. This conference marks the fourth time participants in the Section\u2019s international network have come together since its inception. People of diverse abilities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22917,"featured_media":74117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8823,8845],"tags":[11834,8814],"class_list":["post-74433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflection","category-social","tag-ausgabe-36-2026-en","tag-musings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22917"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74454,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74433\/revisions\/74454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}