It is the truth. I might as well not even exist. Everything I've done matters nothing at all.
...in the past I've often thought: "I don't exist!" Because well, that's about what it amounts to. For all intents and purposes I'm not even really here. Not really even alive.
It is partly, or completely, the result of the collapse of community in America, I guess.
http://www.bowlingalone.com/ Sometimes though, I doubt there's ever been a time when it really would have been different in any positive way. Although I'm sure there have been times when it could have been much worse...
But they have some example solutions:
http://www.bettertogether.org/about.htm
And I've just got to point out the problem with each:
* A mentoring and reading program in Philadelphia that brings together retirees and elementary school children to the benefit of both – the children get help reading and the retirees have a richer, more purposeful life
It's just random kids that don't actually live anywhere near you. One day (each day) another one doesn't show up and you just never see them again. It's not a real community. It's just random people pretending like they've got meaningful connections whom actually will disappear from each other's lives almost immediately. Because, this is how Philadelphia is set-up. Millions of people all plopped down together. Not a single one of your nearest 200 neighbors probably even works at the same job as you. You're teaching some random children that you'll otherwise never ever see. There is no community the two of you are actually a part of.
* A group of sixth-grade activists in a small Wisconsin town who managed to persuade local authorities to improve safety at a railroad crossing and in doing so learned a valuable lesson in civic activism
...ok. That's fine. A small town. Improving an unsafe railroad crossing. Sure. Not really a big deal though..
* A neighborhood in Boston that has been revitalized by a civic association that overcame ethnic differences and now plays an ongoing role in the neighborhood
Well that sounds good as it sounds like an actual neighborhood. Most "neighborhoods" don't deserve the term. It's just a bunch of houses in the same area. From car to house, from house to car. You go ten years and never speak to your next door "neighbor". If they're saying they've got an actual bonafide neighborhood, that's something.
* A community effort in the impoverished Rio Grande Valley, one of the poorest regions in the U.S., that brought such basic services as electricity, roads, and health care to the mostly Spanish-speaking residents
...ok, that's great.
* A successful small business initiative in Tupelo, Mississippi, that began sixty years ago with the purchase of a prize bull
Not enough info.
* Chicago public libraries that have broadened their mission and have become true community centers
Public libraries broadening their mission sounds like a good idea. My town though only has one very small, very moribund public library. Seems to mainly be used by homeless people to get inside for a few hours in the winter. Which of course, is something, I guess.
* Two huge and rapidly growing churches in Los Angeles that are making people feel connected to other church members and their community
Not enough info. Also as Putnam mentions the KKK is also a sort of community. And OK, the reason I feel this whole issue more than most people is probably because I'm not a christian. The endless churches are generally people's sense of community. And this is largley why I suspect there hasn't really been a time in history where my personal situation would have been any better. Becuase, the way I think, I'm just too small of a minority for me to ever really feel a part of any community. Unless I used the internet to go off and find some community that more fit me. But I'm married to a woman that won't let me. So, here I sit in my unexistence.
* The city of Portland, Oregon, where the anti-war movement of the sixties actually changed the institutions so that now there is a remarkably high level of civic engagement in government and politics (more so than in other cities, even other cities on the west coast).
Yes, they're just better people out there. The west coast and even more so in the northern part Oregon, Washington and up into Canada. I would love to move out there. And as Putnam's book says, the sense of community/civic life, hit an alltime high in the 60's as the idealistic baby boomers hit their 20's. And set out to change the world.
The problem with these solutions, is at least what's mentioned here doesn't touch on the problem of geography. There is a book called the Geography of Nowhere which talks about our zoning laws, etc and how we've become a car culture and how this has played such a crucial role in destroying our communities. Solutions to the current lack of community must focus on this problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere
And/or http://www.ic.org/ needs to get much, much bigger. The idea of an intentional community shouldn't be dismissed as some kind of fruity, hippie thing. It would be good if even smaller towns had many such intentional communities, where there was real structured ways and a certain way of thinking whereby the people actually had meaningful connections, associations, etc. Where it wasn't just people holed up in their houses in front of the internet or TV day after day as their lives passed them by, as if they practically hadn't even existed at all.
