Is there even a such thing as community?
The reason I ask is that it seems that nobody ever really knows what somebody else is thinking. Even when they tell you what they're thinking, you are interpreting their words through your own understanding, while their thoughts remain private (and really, so are yours). We share language with others, and assume the words we hear mean what our understanding of them indicates. But do we ever really know the thoughts of another person?
When somebody says the words we want to hear, it is our own thoughts that fill our heads, while theirs remain in their own heads.
We have huge groups of people congregating around the idea that "Jesus is Lord", but don't they each have their own, private interpretation of what that means?
And if you agree with me, does that mena you know what I'm thinking?
I think we can only be individuals in relations with others, that it is community which provides us with a language, a context, a way of acting, a culture. Our private thoughts are not ours, they belong to the community, and we think them.
There are no new-new thoughts, but syntactical differences can be important.
A bit overthought, I think
There is a sense in which be are born, live, and die ultimately alone. But that we don't accurately perceive and understand other's thoughts with 100% fidelity does not mean it isn't a worth effort, or that it's impossible to approximate understanding sufficiently to coexist and cooperate effectively.