People Like Us

Last August PJ and I went down to Tassie to stay with my folks. At the end of our trip, we were packing our things before heading to Launceston where we were going to hire a car for a few days. My dad called PJ into his office and showed him a piece of paper. It was a subscription to Dissent magazine, a gift from him and mum for PJ's birthday. (Later PJ joked that he thought my dad was giving him the bill for our stay.)

Today after work I headed to the post office where this latest issue arrived in our PO box. Oh the joy of seeing PJ's name, not just on the address label but on the table of contents and page 20, where his article Lalgambook: the Djadjawurrung and Coca-Cola Amatil is featured.

Also in this issue is an interesting article by the social policy researcher, Robert Salter called, Moving beyond the limits to solidarity: a social investment approach. In it he writes:

... new forms of communication make it easier for us to build communities of interest in place of the locality-based communities we once relied on. So we are more able to select with whom we associate, and more often that not these are people like us.

My whole adult life I have been scouring the globe for a community of like-minded people. I blog surf, read books, magazines and the paper, I meet people and watch movies in the hope of learning new things and finding kindred spirits. But what if I am wrong? Maybe to really learn new things I should be seeking people who are nothing like me, whose opinions are entirely different from my own.