Jan 01 2008
Anti-Socialism (Not a commentary on the economic system)
On my way home from work tonight, I watched as countless snow drifts floated by and snow devils swept around. I got to thinking about how quiet it is around here. This of course is ironic considering I live in a noisy apartment building on the bustling campus of Purdue. When I say quiet, I mean the kind of quiet that comes with feeling a yearning for community. Again, I find it ironic that I live in an ever changing city of 30 or 40 thousand students (during school sessions, of course) and yet it feels like nobody really knows anyone else. I think of all the people going to class, walking by each-other and not saying hello. Heck, I live in a building with 12 apartments and I couldn’t tell you the first name of anyone but the student manager.
It seems to be a societal thing, this voluntary solitude. With the proliferation of the internet and nearly instantaneous communication with nearly any corner of the globe (I can IM my buddy in Iraq as though he’s across the street from my cell-phone) it’s as though people have forgotten the need to nurture their local communities. I can’t say I’m not guilty, of course, but I wonder where it will all end? Will we get to a point where everyone’s minds are linked in some massive neural network and nobody needs to actually talk anymore? It seems like the only people we really communicate with are those we encounter on a daily basis anyway (coworkers, fellow students, church and club members, etc.) and the art of striking up a conversation with a total stranger is lost.
I feel like I should be going out to the coffee shop and making some new friends, but I’d probably just weird people out because I’m a stranger trying to strike up a conversation with them. That and the internet’s more entertaining; and have you seen the price of coffee these days?
