Take security, for example. In Dallas, if you want to secure your belongings, you lock them up and get an alarm system. Last summer living on the outskirts of a city in Peru, when some youth were harassing our compound, our security guard urged us not to be afraid, saying "I know their families." Or how about finances. For my family, if we want to ensure that we'll be financially taken care of later in life, we open IRAs and sock money away. In a community mindset, you raise your kids well and be a blessing to many people around you, and nobody will let you struggle. What about people around us? In my apartment complex, the number of patios with never-used furniture signals our desire for something we never make time for.
I'm interested in the community we might be missing. I don't think the issue is intellectual - we know we're missing it. Loneliness is rampant in the States. As I mentioned, we all have patio furniture. We do say hi to people when we walk the dog. We're frequently encouraged by videos that remind us to notice those around us. As of today, 38 million people have seen that video. But we won't change. Culture is accelerating around us, there's too much pushing us away from each other.
There's nothing wrong with any of these developments, most of them are beautiful and useful and meaningful. But they are rapidly sweeping away an entire way of life that even survived industrialization...but has succumbed to technologization. We won't return to an older way of life, and I'm not suggesting we try to. But somehow I long not to allow it to be forgotten. There's too many valuable artifacts from it.
Are there ways in which we've built our lives in ways that people just weren't meant to live? I think there may be. This post isn't going to change anybody's life. That's fine. Mine hasn't entirely been changed yet either. But I'm thinking about things, at least. Maybe that's all we need to do - just be conscious of what has gone before and what is happening now.
Paying attention is a good start. Reading books is another. Being willing to think about other perspectives, in a both/and mindset rather than an either/or, will get us a long ways. Simply interacting with people who live differently will transform us. I suspect that, although David Good's mother (in the CBS video) probably largely returned to her life at home, she was forever changed in some ways. And I guarantee that David is forever changed by experiencing her life.