Have you read Dr Vivek Murthy’s Together? It’s a must-read!
He talks about the concept of culture with the metaphor of bowls:
A wide shallow bowl is somewhere like, say, a big city: lots of space to move around, do your own thing, have your own viewpoints, be an individual, but also we don’t have to always run into the same people and it runs the risk of being too individualistic
A tall narrow bowl is like those towns of 88 people: you’re so close to others you’re constantly running into them and have to support each other, but not a lot of room for differences or discovering yourself
The ideal is something in between - that allows for self-discovery and different opinions, but also collective support is easy to find
🤯“commitment is the opposite of loneliness” !! I’ve read a lot on this topic yet this simple sentence nails it so succinctly. Ahh so poignant, thank you.
When people ask me what I miss about living in New York, 25 years on, one of the things that bubbles up first is that the sidewalk and the subway were the great equalizers. That because of the crowds, because of literal elbow rubbing and the occasional hip check, one had no choice but to figure out how to get along with different types of people. Yes, iI could retreat to my book club or favorite watering hole or grassy corner of a park with besties, but eventually, I had to wade back into the stream of everyone on the sidewalk and subway. It reminds me of the spiritual tenet that everyone is made in God’s image. What endlessness in image, external and internal!
Anyway… that’s not to say I didn’t feel lonely in New York… and yes, the small town emphasizes the need for community and connection that I certainly never felt nor sought on the subway. ;)
Ohhh I love that so much--back into the stream, yes! I have been trying so hard lately to imagine that each person has something to show me about God's image. Some people are much more challenging than others!!!! But I do love that idea, and maybe New York shows a teeny tiny sliver of that endless image!
I've been thinking of the idea of 'commitment' as well these days, and how burned out I am from all these endless options & deeply longed to be back for a simpler era. This piece gives me a lot of reassurance that it's not impossible. Thank you as always for the lovely read ❤️
"Burned out from endless options" <---I sooo feel that. I didn't have internet/service in Wyoming and I found myself being able to do these miraculous things like just look at a cow for half an hour without thinking about what else I could be doing!
“I won’t even sign up for a ceramics class if it’s longer than 8 weeks” I felt this 🥴 I always like to keep my options open, but have noticed how much the experience is elevated when I full heartedly commit.
If I'm remembering/interpreting correctly, the final letter on the Myers-Briggs test (P or J) refers to a person's tendency to keep all options open or tendency to make a decision and go from there. As a strong INFP, I very much identify with the former, and I'm working on it for the exact reason you say. The experience really is elevated, so true!
I remember how I felt when my husband and I decided to stay in our current city for “the foreseeable future” or until we had a reason to leave. Up until that point I had always been so good at creating reasons to leave, and staying made me feel so itchy. Now years later I’ve gotten so much more comfort from the staying than I anticipated. I love feeling like I’m a part of something and committed to a community as I keep learning about it and cultivating it. I also love the idea of belonging as a verb… it takes action and work to bring it about.
This lovely anecdote reminded me of one of my favorite books, 'When Wanderers Cease To Roam.' I can so identify with the itchiness, and can also identify with the comfort! One of the many side effects of "aging" (just...turning more years older? :) is how OKAY I am with staying in one place, with one person, in one vocation, with one identity. A younger me would be shocked!!
Omg I know Amanda! Well, loosely. We met up for coffee/advice when I was starting at Union last summer. What a small world! Also, yes yes, this is all so good. Been thinking about the conflict stuff a lot lately, but I hadn’t connected it to loneliness! Feels like just suggesting you can maintain relationships with people on the other side of the political aisle will get you cancelled. But really, how else does anyone ever change and grow, if not through relationships?
OMG you're very lucky to know her! Union is incredible; in another life I would have gone there. "Feels like just suggesting you can maintain relationships with people on the other side of the political aisle will get you cancelled" <--So true, I was so nervous to write about this for a long time!!
This question was deceptively complicated and has brought up a lot for me this morning! For one, when I really think about it, I remember growing up not feeling like there was a lot of media out there that actually captured what rural small town life is like. It always felt like caricatures or uneducated people who were the butt of the joke.
For another, I can't really recall a time anyone has ever truly been curious about my hometown, except for wondering what made me want to leave/saying they would have never guessed where I was from or asking if I went to parties in cornfields lol. So thank you for your curiosity and this opportunity to reflect 🫶
That said, there's a couple of examples I could think of. Friday Night Lights hit so close to home for how small towns worship high school football and how even the adults' lives revolve around the season. Sharp Objects on HBO, especially the scene where Amma is rollerblading with her friends out in the wooded area, captures that feeling of being young/invincible in the middle of nowhere so viscerally. And I do think Sweet Home Alabama and Schitt's Creek really nail the interpersonal dynamics so well, particularly the tension between people who are from cities and those who have always lived in small towns and how there's a lot of judgment/preconceived notions on both sides.
The best, though, is probably Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which is so tenderhearted towards its small town residents in all their simplicity and mundanity and reticence to change. Although the town is physically different from mine (set in coastal Maine), the emotional truths are universal and spot-on.
This was such a lovely surprise to mull over today, thank you thank you!
I could cry--this is the most generous possible answer and it's been rolling around marble-style in my brain all day. FNL is the most beautiful show; I'm so happy you brought it back to mind. I haven't read Olive Kitteridge (though I've heard spectacular things!) but it will jump the large queue to next-in-line!
I feel so embarrassed admitting this, but as I was being taxi'd through all these small towns to the ranch and talking to the driver who never left her small town, I was enormously humbled by how little I actually know. I talked to her about some political issues in her area that have been upsetting me (namely, how the Bureau of Land Management is 'dealing with' the wild horses to make room for cattle ranches), and in hearing her perspective I realized how dumb I probably sounded...in from the big city with all these ideas about how her town should work. In actuality, of course, I have zero clue. I felt tremendously uninformed, which was actually a sort of exhilarating feeling; the internet can tell us a lot, but it can only tell us so much. I really, really appreciated the times I actually got to have intimate conversations with people from the area who just know way more than I do on countless levels.
One last question if you're up for it! :) When you travel, do you feel more at home in small towns even if the culture is very different? I ask because I spent a bit of time alone in Japan as a high schooler, but I was in a city. I've always lived in cities, and cities are always pretty much the same. I would have definitely felt much more culture shock in an American small town than a Japanese city. Do you feel like you more or less have the hang of how rural small towns work anywhere? Like, do they all feel familiar-ish to you? Does that make sense??
Thank you sooo much for sharing this special experience with me!!
I hope you don't mind if I pop in too – I also grew up in a small town (in New Zealand) with about 2,000 people and your question got me thinking. In general small towns only feel like home if they're similar to mine geographically (big sections with gardens, single level shops and schools, lots of public nature spaces). When I was 16 I did an exchange to a small town in Italy and even though the population was similar it was a major culture shock for me in a way visiting, say, Hong Kong wasn't. The town I exchanged in was nestled in the hills with steep, windy streets and dense knots of apartments made from reinforced concrete and brick. Honestly at first it just felt so claustrophobic and sparse in a way that didn't make sense at all given how much space was around the perimeter of the town. My 16 year old self could understand apartments as the only logical answer to the number of people + square metres of land available in Hong Kong, but here? Wouldn't you want more space?
I learnt to love the town, but on the first night I sent a rash homesick email to my boyfriend at the time about how unusual the environment felt, which my host sister ended up reading without my permission and sadly it really offended her.
Now that I've lived more life and am much better travelled, I feel a kinship with people I meet in small towns in other countries in the sense that I feel we have both a shared luck in having a stake in the small town game. I feel I understand why they want to live in their small town, whereas I don't intrinsically understand what draws someone to say Guangzhou China or São Paulo Brazil.
I live in a city now and know what you mean about all cities feeling the same in some way. But for those of us who love the small town we're from, we tend to carry around a (usually light-hearted) sense of "my small town is best!" in a similar vein to how some "New York or nothing" types can 😊
I'm SO happy you chimed in!! What a fascinating, fascinating story and reflection. (We share the experience of having trouble adjusting to our Italian study abroad experiences--oof, that email snafu must have been so tricky to navigate!)
I love that you note the intrinsic understanding of a draw to a small town as opposed to a city. I feel that more and more even though I've never had the experience! I don't bat an eyelash when friends leave NYC for smaller, slower living, but I get confused when they move cities!
In my mind, all NZ small towns look just like the one in Whale Rider which is breathtaking, so, in my mind's eye, yours is definitely the best ;)
Well we are two peas in a pod then because I've been thinking about this post/your thoughtful q's nonstop too! I've always had a complex relationship to my hometown (left at 18, have rarely returned, felt very much like an outcast growing up and so rejected it as an adult the same way I felt rejected by it as a kid) and in the past year or so, I've been reexamining the benefits of it, how growing up there shaped me, and how I can have a more generous relationship with it now. Your recent writing about sitting with opposing views and handling them lovingly has helped enormously, so it feels like such a gift to have this conversation!
I think your point about the internet only telling us so much is spot on. My boyfriend was telling me recently about how architecture students used to rely almost solely on computer modeling but are now returning to building physical models because they were finding that the spaces didn't actually fit how humans live. Once the spaces were built, sinks would be too low and hallways too narrow, things like that, even though the computer said it was the "right" measurement. And I think that's such a powerful metaphor for envisioning how others live too! We can learn a lot from sharing knowledge online, but there's really nothing like experiencing it for ourselves, and I think it's amazing that you were able to have that connection with your taxi driver! I'd venture to say most Americans will never seek out visiting somewhere like that, let alone digging into the nitty gritty of a potentially contentious conversation, and it's refreshing that you would and would share it for others to be inspired by as well.
As for your q, I had to really think about this one! It's such an interesting point about being more comfortable in a Japanese city than an American small town. When I moved to Paris for a bit after living in New York, I had culture shock with the language but you're right, I think it was an easier transition because the two cities felt largely the same. When I find small towns when I travel, I think there is both a comfort and a discomfort present...comfort because it looks the same as my hometown/surrounding area and I know generally how it operates but discomfort because it brings up a lot of latent feelings of not belonging that I haven't fully worked through yet.
That said, I do think many small towns operate very similarly, at least in the Midwest. One of my best friend's husbands is from a rural town too, and the way he describes his upbringing/family and how the town operates is eerily similar to mine despite being far away from each other, which I find soo fascinating. Goes to show how much humans have in common and how widespread culture can be to permeate large swaths of land.
Anyways, this is the longest comment I think I've ever written, but truly thank you for this beautiful/healing conversation, and I hope you enjoy Olive Kitteridge!!
Courtney, I can completely relate! I grew up on a farm by a town of 300 in South Dakota. I lived in a metro area for years and moved back to live in my Great Grandparents house.
100%: "Tension between people who are from cities and those who have always lived in small towns and how there's a lot of judgment/preconceived notions on both sides."
This year my mailman (in his 70s) walked up to everyone's door, we all live in the country and handed out roses on Valentines Day. It was so lovely, bright unexpected surprise.
I have been thinking a lot about the willingness for random connections. I recently completed a camino in Spain and I loved the openness for connection. You could talk to a stranger for hours while walking.
It's so interesting how we seem to be great at commitments that reap visual/tangible rewards (commit to a hike, you'll get the prize of a view. Commit to a fitness regimen/diet, you'll get the satisfaction of being stronger etc.). But when the reward is less tangible (and probably takes longer) the commitment itself feels so much less alluring. Who wants to be uncomfortable for no perceived payoff in sight?
That's why I love your call-out of "showing up even when you aren't feeling/believing it" - that feels like SUCH an antidote to the resistance. As someone with a penchant for avoiding discomfort - I'm going to take this with me. Going through the motions for the *very sake* of commitment feels like a reward in and of itself. Who might I become on the other side of that vow?
Oh gosh that's so true, such a good distinction about the commitments that have tangible payoff (the diet/fitness one is soooo real!). I've been wondering about that re: marriage; I do like being married (!) but I actually wonder why it's so common (aside from the obvious tradition/expectation) because it is one of those things where showing up probably does become very difficult at times, and the reward is quite far in the future and not guaranteed. It's quite selfless, really, which is unusual in our times! "Who might I become on the other side of that vow?" is the question that must motivate so many!
Yes to this... the Benedictines include a vow of stability when people join their order--a pledge to remain grounded in a particular community. This post helps illuminate the wisdom, and the challenge, of such a vow!
I needed this reminder and dislike that I needed it. :) Humans are complex and frustrating - why would we ever expect communal existence to be any different? Yet the lure of ease and comfort is SO strong...
Opting in to communal existence is really quite insane when I think about it!! I can easily see why there are apparently people in Wyoming living completely off the grid!
loved this so much! reminds me of an interview Rayne Fisher-Quann did on binchtopia (the episode is called "Hopeful Vocal Fry") which talks about coalition building in social justice movements and how we can't kick each other out as soon as we find minor ideological differences because you NEED the strength of numbers! We need each other!
Oooo I will listen to that in the bathtub today! :) I SO admire people who are so committed to social justice that they have somehow learned to embrace differences and frustrations because indeed we need each other! It breaks my heart when folks involved in a movement start in-fighting to the point of splintering, and yet I 100% get it.
In a world where everything seems like you can just throw it away, you’re showing that being committed to friends and places you love makes you feel like you belong. Keep being awesome and taking care of those special friendships, because they make life super special. You’re doing something really amazing by showing how important it is to stay close to others! 🌟❤️
Love this! Needed this! Thank you!
Have you read Dr Vivek Murthy’s Together? It’s a must-read!
He talks about the concept of culture with the metaphor of bowls:
A wide shallow bowl is somewhere like, say, a big city: lots of space to move around, do your own thing, have your own viewpoints, be an individual, but also we don’t have to always run into the same people and it runs the risk of being too individualistic
A tall narrow bowl is like those towns of 88 people: you’re so close to others you’re constantly running into them and have to support each other, but not a lot of room for differences or discovering yourself
The ideal is something in between - that allows for self-discovery and different opinions, but also collective support is easy to find
Ooooo I haven't but I love that!!! Will look into it!!
Sounds like an interesting perspective on culture and community! I’ll have to check out Dr. Vivek Murthy’s book Together.
🤯“commitment is the opposite of loneliness” !! I’ve read a lot on this topic yet this simple sentence nails it so succinctly. Ahh so poignant, thank you.
AWWW that's so nice, Kelly, thank you!
Thanks for this lovely piece!
When people ask me what I miss about living in New York, 25 years on, one of the things that bubbles up first is that the sidewalk and the subway were the great equalizers. That because of the crowds, because of literal elbow rubbing and the occasional hip check, one had no choice but to figure out how to get along with different types of people. Yes, iI could retreat to my book club or favorite watering hole or grassy corner of a park with besties, but eventually, I had to wade back into the stream of everyone on the sidewalk and subway. It reminds me of the spiritual tenet that everyone is made in God’s image. What endlessness in image, external and internal!
Anyway… that’s not to say I didn’t feel lonely in New York… and yes, the small town emphasizes the need for community and connection that I certainly never felt nor sought on the subway. ;)
Ohhh I love that so much--back into the stream, yes! I have been trying so hard lately to imagine that each person has something to show me about God's image. Some people are much more challenging than others!!!! But I do love that idea, and maybe New York shows a teeny tiny sliver of that endless image!
I've been thinking of the idea of 'commitment' as well these days, and how burned out I am from all these endless options & deeply longed to be back for a simpler era. This piece gives me a lot of reassurance that it's not impossible. Thank you as always for the lovely read ❤️
"Burned out from endless options" <---I sooo feel that. I didn't have internet/service in Wyoming and I found myself being able to do these miraculous things like just look at a cow for half an hour without thinking about what else I could be doing!
Such an interesting read again!
“I won’t even sign up for a ceramics class if it’s longer than 8 weeks” I felt this 🥴 I always like to keep my options open, but have noticed how much the experience is elevated when I full heartedly commit.
If I'm remembering/interpreting correctly, the final letter on the Myers-Briggs test (P or J) refers to a person's tendency to keep all options open or tendency to make a decision and go from there. As a strong INFP, I very much identify with the former, and I'm working on it for the exact reason you say. The experience really is elevated, so true!
I remember how I felt when my husband and I decided to stay in our current city for “the foreseeable future” or until we had a reason to leave. Up until that point I had always been so good at creating reasons to leave, and staying made me feel so itchy. Now years later I’ve gotten so much more comfort from the staying than I anticipated. I love feeling like I’m a part of something and committed to a community as I keep learning about it and cultivating it. I also love the idea of belonging as a verb… it takes action and work to bring it about.
Thank you, Mari. 💕
This lovely anecdote reminded me of one of my favorite books, 'When Wanderers Cease To Roam.' I can so identify with the itchiness, and can also identify with the comfort! One of the many side effects of "aging" (just...turning more years older? :) is how OKAY I am with staying in one place, with one person, in one vocation, with one identity. A younger me would be shocked!!
This was so lovely - and yes, of course Espresso is the song of summer. A daily play!
YES! DAILY!
Omg I know Amanda! Well, loosely. We met up for coffee/advice when I was starting at Union last summer. What a small world! Also, yes yes, this is all so good. Been thinking about the conflict stuff a lot lately, but I hadn’t connected it to loneliness! Feels like just suggesting you can maintain relationships with people on the other side of the political aisle will get you cancelled. But really, how else does anyone ever change and grow, if not through relationships?
OMG you're very lucky to know her! Union is incredible; in another life I would have gone there. "Feels like just suggesting you can maintain relationships with people on the other side of the political aisle will get you cancelled" <--So true, I was so nervous to write about this for a long time!!
Grew up in a remote rural town of 2000 people AMA 🫡
Hahahha! :) I'm sooooo curious about it! Are there any books or movies that you think really capture the spirit/experience of rural small town living?
This question was deceptively complicated and has brought up a lot for me this morning! For one, when I really think about it, I remember growing up not feeling like there was a lot of media out there that actually captured what rural small town life is like. It always felt like caricatures or uneducated people who were the butt of the joke.
For another, I can't really recall a time anyone has ever truly been curious about my hometown, except for wondering what made me want to leave/saying they would have never guessed where I was from or asking if I went to parties in cornfields lol. So thank you for your curiosity and this opportunity to reflect 🫶
That said, there's a couple of examples I could think of. Friday Night Lights hit so close to home for how small towns worship high school football and how even the adults' lives revolve around the season. Sharp Objects on HBO, especially the scene where Amma is rollerblading with her friends out in the wooded area, captures that feeling of being young/invincible in the middle of nowhere so viscerally. And I do think Sweet Home Alabama and Schitt's Creek really nail the interpersonal dynamics so well, particularly the tension between people who are from cities and those who have always lived in small towns and how there's a lot of judgment/preconceived notions on both sides.
The best, though, is probably Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which is so tenderhearted towards its small town residents in all their simplicity and mundanity and reticence to change. Although the town is physically different from mine (set in coastal Maine), the emotional truths are universal and spot-on.
This was such a lovely surprise to mull over today, thank you thank you!
I could cry--this is the most generous possible answer and it's been rolling around marble-style in my brain all day. FNL is the most beautiful show; I'm so happy you brought it back to mind. I haven't read Olive Kitteridge (though I've heard spectacular things!) but it will jump the large queue to next-in-line!
I feel so embarrassed admitting this, but as I was being taxi'd through all these small towns to the ranch and talking to the driver who never left her small town, I was enormously humbled by how little I actually know. I talked to her about some political issues in her area that have been upsetting me (namely, how the Bureau of Land Management is 'dealing with' the wild horses to make room for cattle ranches), and in hearing her perspective I realized how dumb I probably sounded...in from the big city with all these ideas about how her town should work. In actuality, of course, I have zero clue. I felt tremendously uninformed, which was actually a sort of exhilarating feeling; the internet can tell us a lot, but it can only tell us so much. I really, really appreciated the times I actually got to have intimate conversations with people from the area who just know way more than I do on countless levels.
One last question if you're up for it! :) When you travel, do you feel more at home in small towns even if the culture is very different? I ask because I spent a bit of time alone in Japan as a high schooler, but I was in a city. I've always lived in cities, and cities are always pretty much the same. I would have definitely felt much more culture shock in an American small town than a Japanese city. Do you feel like you more or less have the hang of how rural small towns work anywhere? Like, do they all feel familiar-ish to you? Does that make sense??
Thank you sooo much for sharing this special experience with me!!
Hi Mari,
I hope you don't mind if I pop in too – I also grew up in a small town (in New Zealand) with about 2,000 people and your question got me thinking. In general small towns only feel like home if they're similar to mine geographically (big sections with gardens, single level shops and schools, lots of public nature spaces). When I was 16 I did an exchange to a small town in Italy and even though the population was similar it was a major culture shock for me in a way visiting, say, Hong Kong wasn't. The town I exchanged in was nestled in the hills with steep, windy streets and dense knots of apartments made from reinforced concrete and brick. Honestly at first it just felt so claustrophobic and sparse in a way that didn't make sense at all given how much space was around the perimeter of the town. My 16 year old self could understand apartments as the only logical answer to the number of people + square metres of land available in Hong Kong, but here? Wouldn't you want more space?
I learnt to love the town, but on the first night I sent a rash homesick email to my boyfriend at the time about how unusual the environment felt, which my host sister ended up reading without my permission and sadly it really offended her.
Now that I've lived more life and am much better travelled, I feel a kinship with people I meet in small towns in other countries in the sense that I feel we have both a shared luck in having a stake in the small town game. I feel I understand why they want to live in their small town, whereas I don't intrinsically understand what draws someone to say Guangzhou China or São Paulo Brazil.
I live in a city now and know what you mean about all cities feeling the same in some way. But for those of us who love the small town we're from, we tend to carry around a (usually light-hearted) sense of "my small town is best!" in a similar vein to how some "New York or nothing" types can 😊
I'm SO happy you chimed in!! What a fascinating, fascinating story and reflection. (We share the experience of having trouble adjusting to our Italian study abroad experiences--oof, that email snafu must have been so tricky to navigate!)
I love that you note the intrinsic understanding of a draw to a small town as opposed to a city. I feel that more and more even though I've never had the experience! I don't bat an eyelash when friends leave NYC for smaller, slower living, but I get confused when they move cities!
In my mind, all NZ small towns look just like the one in Whale Rider which is breathtaking, so, in my mind's eye, yours is definitely the best ;)
Well we are two peas in a pod then because I've been thinking about this post/your thoughtful q's nonstop too! I've always had a complex relationship to my hometown (left at 18, have rarely returned, felt very much like an outcast growing up and so rejected it as an adult the same way I felt rejected by it as a kid) and in the past year or so, I've been reexamining the benefits of it, how growing up there shaped me, and how I can have a more generous relationship with it now. Your recent writing about sitting with opposing views and handling them lovingly has helped enormously, so it feels like such a gift to have this conversation!
I think your point about the internet only telling us so much is spot on. My boyfriend was telling me recently about how architecture students used to rely almost solely on computer modeling but are now returning to building physical models because they were finding that the spaces didn't actually fit how humans live. Once the spaces were built, sinks would be too low and hallways too narrow, things like that, even though the computer said it was the "right" measurement. And I think that's such a powerful metaphor for envisioning how others live too! We can learn a lot from sharing knowledge online, but there's really nothing like experiencing it for ourselves, and I think it's amazing that you were able to have that connection with your taxi driver! I'd venture to say most Americans will never seek out visiting somewhere like that, let alone digging into the nitty gritty of a potentially contentious conversation, and it's refreshing that you would and would share it for others to be inspired by as well.
As for your q, I had to really think about this one! It's such an interesting point about being more comfortable in a Japanese city than an American small town. When I moved to Paris for a bit after living in New York, I had culture shock with the language but you're right, I think it was an easier transition because the two cities felt largely the same. When I find small towns when I travel, I think there is both a comfort and a discomfort present...comfort because it looks the same as my hometown/surrounding area and I know generally how it operates but discomfort because it brings up a lot of latent feelings of not belonging that I haven't fully worked through yet.
That said, I do think many small towns operate very similarly, at least in the Midwest. One of my best friend's husbands is from a rural town too, and the way he describes his upbringing/family and how the town operates is eerily similar to mine despite being far away from each other, which I find soo fascinating. Goes to show how much humans have in common and how widespread culture can be to permeate large swaths of land.
Anyways, this is the longest comment I think I've ever written, but truly thank you for this beautiful/healing conversation, and I hope you enjoy Olive Kitteridge!!
Courtney, I can completely relate! I grew up on a farm by a town of 300 in South Dakota. I lived in a metro area for years and moved back to live in my Great Grandparents house.
100%: "Tension between people who are from cities and those who have always lived in small towns and how there's a lot of judgment/preconceived notions on both sides."
This year my mailman (in his 70s) walked up to everyone's door, we all live in the country and handed out roses on Valentines Day. It was so lovely, bright unexpected surprise.
I have been thinking a lot about the willingness for random connections. I recently completed a camino in Spain and I loved the openness for connection. You could talk to a stranger for hours while walking.
It is all interesting to ponder!
SO insightful, as always!!
It's so interesting how we seem to be great at commitments that reap visual/tangible rewards (commit to a hike, you'll get the prize of a view. Commit to a fitness regimen/diet, you'll get the satisfaction of being stronger etc.). But when the reward is less tangible (and probably takes longer) the commitment itself feels so much less alluring. Who wants to be uncomfortable for no perceived payoff in sight?
That's why I love your call-out of "showing up even when you aren't feeling/believing it" - that feels like SUCH an antidote to the resistance. As someone with a penchant for avoiding discomfort - I'm going to take this with me. Going through the motions for the *very sake* of commitment feels like a reward in and of itself. Who might I become on the other side of that vow?
Thank you <3
Oh gosh that's so true, such a good distinction about the commitments that have tangible payoff (the diet/fitness one is soooo real!). I've been wondering about that re: marriage; I do like being married (!) but I actually wonder why it's so common (aside from the obvious tradition/expectation) because it is one of those things where showing up probably does become very difficult at times, and the reward is quite far in the future and not guaranteed. It's quite selfless, really, which is unusual in our times! "Who might I become on the other side of that vow?" is the question that must motivate so many!
Yes to this... the Benedictines include a vow of stability when people join their order--a pledge to remain grounded in a particular community. This post helps illuminate the wisdom, and the challenge, of such a vow!
I didn't know that, and it makes so much sense!! Going to read about it now! And thank you so much!!!!
I needed this reminder and dislike that I needed it. :) Humans are complex and frustrating - why would we ever expect communal existence to be any different? Yet the lure of ease and comfort is SO strong...
Opting in to communal existence is really quite insane when I think about it!! I can easily see why there are apparently people in Wyoming living completely off the grid!
loved this so much! reminds me of an interview Rayne Fisher-Quann did on binchtopia (the episode is called "Hopeful Vocal Fry") which talks about coalition building in social justice movements and how we can't kick each other out as soon as we find minor ideological differences because you NEED the strength of numbers! We need each other!
Oooo I will listen to that in the bathtub today! :) I SO admire people who are so committed to social justice that they have somehow learned to embrace differences and frustrations because indeed we need each other! It breaks my heart when folks involved in a movement start in-fighting to the point of splintering, and yet I 100% get it.
So relatable, and sad, but yes WORK and TRUST of the essential goodness of others is required
"Trust of the essential goodness of others" <--- Yes! So important, and sometimes so hard!
In a world where everything seems like you can just throw it away, you’re showing that being committed to friends and places you love makes you feel like you belong. Keep being awesome and taking care of those special friendships, because they make life super special. You’re doing something really amazing by showing how important it is to stay close to others! 🌟❤️
Well that is so kind of you to say!! Thank you so much!!! I write these things as a reminder to myself, ever a work in progress! :)