The Return of Reliance
Must the village be a verboten concept? Are we so independent that we cannot collectively agree that independence in the grand scheme is a temporary reality, and not an optimal one. It is the splinter of a moment at the end of a race where one man stands at the top of a mountain and says "Just me." We have not forgotten that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, have we?
"I am an island", my long-time male friend proclaims as he finishes the build on a beautiful log cabin house on the water in Tahoe this month, customized to every detail of a singular life dependent on no one. Another female aquaintance of mine, a single mother, maintains that she doesn't seek to establish a traditional family scene and in the same breath mentions also that she is exhausted and feels unsupported. And many of us have felt for years that our voice doesn't matter, our votes don't matter, recyclying doesn't matter, my way or the highway and so on.
But I think now there has begun a renewal of community, real community, not just virtual. Whether you believe it or not, virtuality has enabled the return of reliance on one another. Last weekend, because I do less podcasting less these days, I rented out my Marantz sound recorder to a woman who was capturing the sounds of birds. Today I need to find a British army coat for my daughter's 5th grade play. I bet if items like that were listed in some loan database by zipcode, like making my recorder available, I could find one blocks away instead of having to go downtown. I think we're very close to that reality. For resources, for information and support, for all kinds of things.
Last weekend I held a talk show on BlogTalkRadio and my guest mentioned the disappearance of a woman on vacation in Cancun, Mexico. Last night, a woman called me from NY with information about the incident and sent me several articles which lead to the idea that a suspect in the woman's disappearance may be on the west coast now. I wondered if there were any bloggers who had put together an alert system yet about missing persons. In the U.S. anyway, a certain amount of time must pass before a person is considered missing yet homocide police will say that every hour matters in the capture of criminals in cases like these. Again, community stemming from the virtual world can touch our every day lives. These things are coming. If you have any information about the disappearance of this woman, an Israeli tourist, please contact me.
