It Takes a Village Part 2

This must be an important message for me to make it a two-parter.

Yes, it is!

I think this is a vital message for mankind in general, and this country in particular.

Those of you reading this who are under the age of, shall we say thirty, probably don’t have a decent frame of reference about this topic. It feels like we have been moving further and further away from friendliness and helpfulness and giving a shit about our fellow “man” for quite a long time now, but in truth it was, once, the norm in this country.  Tight-knit neighborhoods were once “a thing” in this country.

In Part 1 of this two-parter, I raised the question why that is? Why are we so isolated? Why are we so rude and belligerent on social media? Why, why, and toss in a few more whys while we are at it.

One good friend, who I have known now for close to fifteen years, answered this way: “When their population more than doubles, most animals react to stress by fighting for survival.” Thank you, Gay, for your insight, and I do believe that to be a segment of the answer as to why.  We don’t know who to believe on social media, who to believe in the news, good jobs are scarce, money is drying up, crime is on the rise, quite frankly fear is running rampant in many cities, and I think hope, for a lot of people, has taken the last Greyhound out of town.  The environment is in the toilet, traffic is beyond hectic, people can barely afford to live wherever it is they call home . . . and it all leads to distrust and anger and a complete collapse of civility on many days.

And yet, on days like this, when a young person I barely know walks across the parking lot just to say hi to me, see how I’m doing, check in on Maggie’s health, I catch myself from saying “to hell with it all” and realize there are still very good people out there, people who do want to be a part of the solution rather than a continuation of the problem (thank you, Rose!)

If I’m being completely honest, I believe the good far outnumbers the bad in this world, but it’s just that the actions of a few bad seeds can make sure a negative impression remains with us indefinitely, whereas the actions of the good sometimes get ignored or not noticed at all.  And let’s face it, as any good fear-monger knows, negative sells ad spots and garners views, whereas good is looked upon as boring and mundane.

In the last installment I mentioned the farm owned by stepson Matt and his wife Rachel, how they have a “village” on that dead-end road with six homes, all knowing each other, some related to each other, all helping each other.  And I mentioned, at that time, that the sort of Nirvana I had described is not possible for most people living in most neighborhoods.

But that doesn’t mean all is hopeless.

Do you know your neighbors’ names?  Have you ever invited them over for a coffee or a beer, spent time getting to know them?

In the neighborhood Bev and I lived in back in 2023, there was a block party every year in August, and all the neighbors congregated for a few hours and strengthened the bond between them.  Isn’t that something you could organize?  Can you see how everyone benefits when those kinds of events are held?

But it takes one person to take the first step. It takes one person to say “to hell with it” and take a chance on making meaningful change happen.  It takes one person to lay the foundation for your own neighborhood village.

Is it possible in 2024 and beyond, to live in a neighborhood like I once lived in as a child?

I would say to you that our asses are in the fire, and we need many more of those types of neighborhoods, those types of villages. We need to reverse the trend. We need to stop waiting for the government or Superman or whomever to save the day.  We need to be the solution we desperately need.

Just sayin’