“Little pools of water tend to become stagnant and useless, but if they are joined together to form a big lake the atmosphere is cooled and there is universal benefit.” - Vallabhbhai Patel

People alone are powerful, but an entire community’s impact is permanent. Change is only brought about when groups of people with similar aims, motives, and traits come together to demand it. The question “what binds these communities together” still stands.

A community is not restricted by physical traits, nor are the interests of its members the same. Usually the bond between these people is much deeper, like flesh and sinew attached to a bone: longing to feel at home, fear of the state in control in their homeland, or just nationalism. What seems to lie at the crux of every community is a 1.4 by 1.8 inch booklet, or series of paper booklets, highlighting one’s nationality.

Alone an overseas citizen can be homesick, longing for a home-cooked meal with family, yearning to speak a language which was once so familiar but now seems foreign; although these feelings do not just disappear, the presence of other people from the same community, experiencing the same things, makes their effects less severe.

Home may be where the heart is, but all a heart needs to call someplace home is to feel understood, and that is what community members do for each other. They understand the helplessness, desire, and temptation to go somewhere where they feel like they belong. Even being the third generation of an immigrant family, being born and raised in a different country, one is still discriminated against, making them feel as though they do not fit in where they are, making them long for a country they may never have even visited, just to belong.

Nationality aside, communities sprout from mutual acceptance. If not based on citizenship, a community can be based upon gender identity, race, values, beliefs, and so on. People alone may feel discriminated against, misunderstood, and angry to live in a world where everything seems to be in favor of an opposing power.

Together, they may feel the same emotions, while being motivated to bring change to ensure no one else feels the same way. Raindrops come together to form an ocean, with waves mighty enough to break down barriers; they become raging storms, bringing cool skies. Communities unite to bring change to ensure future members don’t have to face the same issues they face; they come together to make just a fragment of the world just one percent better.

Thus, the answer to this complicated question becomes simple. What binds my community or anyone’s community together boils down to two things: first, feeling understood, and second, the desire to bring change to make this planet better, because small acts once multiplied by thousands of people have the power to change the world.