April blogging #A-Z 2018- D

This post is written for the April blogging #A-Z 2018. 

I have chosen the theme Books and Authors for this year.

D – The Different Drum by Dr Scott Peck

Book published in 1987 Dr Scott peck passed away in 2005

I recall working in Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) that used to focus on Community health and wholistic health.  Every year there would be Health and Healing Week sometime in April and the organization would reflect on various aspects of health for 7 days. I remember for one such a year the theme chosen was Community Health. The book Different Drum was a suggestive reading to throw some light on how Community could be a Healer. In this context I happen to read this book.

The Different Drum is the third book of Dr Scott Peck I have read. (The other two books were Road Less Travelled & People of the Lie.)  I remember borrowing this book from the library. I was  quite inspired about the way Dr Scott speck speaks of building communities  transforming the world into a small community.  This is totally a different kind of a book wherein he speaks of community building, and characteristics of genuine community. He shares his personal experience of facilitating a community building workshop for groups and the different phases a group goes through in evolving to be the true and authentic community.

Dr Scott Peck speaks about Pseudo community that does not appreciate individual differences and

Just pretends being community, nice to one another and hiding true feelings and just being pleasing to one another, avoiding conflicts.  Dr Scott Peck continues from his own experience as to how he started feeling uncomfortable after some hours, he couldn’t continue being nice and had to break the boredom of the behaviour of a false community. He decides to share the next day his own personal feelings of discomfort and opens his heart and talks about how he is feeling and within no time a lot of the group members start talking about their own feelings of discomforts too  in the group.

He speaks about Chaos - giving examples of individuals with differences of opinion who were trying to change the other persons thinking, proving that they are right using various strategies of having sweet conversations and at other times becoming angry and judgmental thus giving birth to confusion in the community, which Dr Scott Peck says is important for the community in order to  emerge from and  move towards the next level in evolving –he speaks of the third level - Emptiness where members learn to speak and the others listen to understand and share their feelings openly, his ideas are idealistic and thought provoking.

This book challenges us to learn to be honest and vulnerable, ready to empty oneself from preconceived ideas to be able to listen without judging people and community building is a process, which takes a lot of effort and not a easy one as conflicts are bound to arise and its necessary and cannot be avoided in order to create a peaceful community on mutual understanding.

“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability, there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.” Scott Peck

Thank you for reading my post – have you read this book if so what are your thoughts, would love to connect with you.

Be Happy & Be Blessed !!