Practical solutions for people + planet
Is moving away running away?
I am struggling with where I am sitting in this world and how I am using my skills and gifts. I am wondering if there are kindred spirits out there who are willing to explore the following question with me...
Is it irresponsible of me to be considering moving out of my industrial city and into a place that is still relatively benign, knowing that I am taking with me some of the positive human energy that could potentially turn this city around?
Is it irresponsible of me to be considering moving out of my industrial city and into a place that is still relatively benign, knowing that I am taking with me some of the positive human energy that could potentially turn this city around?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Kimberley on -
Absolutely, all this on my list of considerations. First to the point of pop culture. I agree completely. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid it if you live in the middle of the suburbs. It is absolutely everywhere and in every single peer conversation for them once they get a certain age, which two of mine have. To exclude this for them is to make them completely irrelevant in their peer groups here. This is one of the big reasons I want to get them out. I do not like the values they are establishing here. To your second point about locals and transplants, in urban areas we are having a hell of a time with isolation. We live on top of each other and have no community whatsoever and no real way to build one. We all arrive home late from our commutes from work, exhausted and hurried to get food on the table and get the homework done and kids to bed. There is no time for coffee on the porch with neighbors or visiting on weekends. The pace is strenuous. Even if one family figures out how to slow down, which is virtually impossible in the middle of the chaos, there is no one to build community with because no one else near them has figured it out.
Then we have the issue of lack of wild spaces. Nothing is wild here. In the place where I live, we literally have to drive over an hour to get to anywhere with wide open spaces and we live in Texas!
It is insane. We are all going to need to learn how to build community and to hold the boundaries to our individual communities very loosely if we are going to survive as a culture. We are running too hard, too fast and beginning to realize the toll this isolation is taking.
-
Permalink Reply by Afriendof B on -
When we lived in Wyoming we were 7 miles from the nearest "town" (pop. 100 on a good day, two bar/cafes, 1 post office, no gas) and 50 miles from a town with a store, a bank, and other basic services (maybe 10000 people). Isolated! But we knew everyone, got together regularly, helped each other when stranded, etc. Community in Isolation. When I lived in Phoenix I didn't even know the people who lived in the apartment next door. We worked different shifts in different industries. Everything was locked all the time, and you felt nervous about running into someone in the parking lot at night even if they lived in your building. Bigger place, more people, more options, less community. Real isolation. I think you are right about shopping, and all the other entertainment activities being used to fill the void of meaning and connection. However, it is the connections and the meaning, not the location that fill the void. You can be pretty isolated and tuned out in the country too.
-
Permalink Reply by Barbara P. on -
I think that some of the so called 'right answer' has come out in the discussion thread. What I read into it and agree with, as adult/parents, we have the oneous to decide what are the values that we want to pass onto our children, as well as the influence we want to have on our family, friends and those we come into contact with at work, in our neighborhoods and where ever we are.
Moving isn't really the problem then...perhaps it is the decisions made as to what it is that we value and the actions that decision makes us do. I surely liked the reply in the one message that they didn't value, TV, video games, the mall, running around to mindless activities just to be enrolled into an activity and the kids turned out well-'even radically'.
One of the challenges is to SLOW down so we can hear our voice/reflect upon what it is that we value, we have have and what we don't have in order to find a means to define what we want or long for and then begin to discover means/people to help us along the path to going and getting it...
Seems like the vast majority of us have similar mindsets in the core values of what is important but have somehow gotten pulled into the morase and frenzy of society and consequently have 'lost it'. Perhaps the place isn't what is important but more likely entirely a viewpoint?
-
Permalink Reply by Lucy Garrick on -
Whatever your concerns, you need to think about what will best prepare your children for living and adapting to a world as it is; engendering in them the values and skills necessary to survive the future as happy, compassionate human beings.
Avoiding the problems of society is a solution, and you have to ask yourself, does it create the conditions for my children to grown up confident, congruent and equipped to adapt to a global society where complexity and change are a constant? I would consider moving (and I think you can equip them in both the industrial city or the "benign" country), if there are opportunities to learn to communicate with people from varied cultures and backgrounds, they are exposed to diverse thought, individual leadership is valued and supported, and listening, courage, and compassion are valued reinforced. These are some of the personal tools they will need to thrive in the future.
What doesn't help is when we learn to defer problems to authority figures or to act from fear.
A good book to check out is "The Resilience Factor." by Reivich and Shatte. You cannot protect your children, but you can prepare them.
It is not possible to predict the outcome of your actions, but I think it is great to consider the options that fit with your family's needs and what it values. I also think it's great that you reached out to the community to help you with this. Good Luck! lg
-
Permalink Reply by William McILwain on -
Hi Kimberly, you alone will not turn the city around so it would be irresponsable not to use your positive human energy where it will blossom with like minded people, and collectively we may all influence all industrial cities to follow a more eco friendy path
-
Permalink Reply by arcataberry on -
I've been living in California for 30 years, currently in Northern California where the "redwoods meet the ocean". My community is very progressive in every respect. I will be moving to Washington D.C. on July 4 of this year and although I have anxiety about a city environment I plan to bring all of the healing and wellness and love of nature that living in extraordinary communities has given me. I will not be co-opted, but rather bring what I have to a city that is deeply in need of shake-ups, healing and truth. Of course, Obama will become President soon after I get there.
On LEAVING a city: After 20 years in L.A., a city that taught me more than any other about social relations, environment, tolerance, anger, etc. I moved North and was able to caution smaller communities that if they ignored the many lessons offered by that huge, complicated place the same issues would arrive on their doorsteps.
-
Permalink Reply by Michael Augustine on -
Not at all. You have thousands of years of Taoist hermits demonstrating the viability of that choice. Or, look at it in terms of physics. The most useful place to put the fulcrum is not directly under the portion of the lever pushing on the object to be moved. You place the fulcrum away from the part of the lever you want to move. All it really comes down to is what kind of work do you want to do? There is inner work that is very real and affects reality at the subtle level (meditation, prayer) and there is physical work such as activism. Are you an introvert or extravert? It today's connected reality, you can probably communicate from the quietude of your benign dwelling.
-
Permalink Reply by Sue Fox on -
I believe in "If you set your mind to it, you can do anything you want". I came from a poor military family, but was fortunate to travel the world as my dad was in the air force. I saw so much poverty and people getting by with little, but I also laughter and kids playing in the streets. I have always felt so blessed with the world around me, the food I eat and the people I meet. Even to this day I say hello to the bus driver, the guy at the corner store, people on the street. I believe in community and opening your eyes wide and giving a smile. I do this in the city and I do this in small towns even if I am there to give an environmental message that they don't want to hear. I open my ears and my heart to hear their tales. I try to be compassionate. I know there is a solution to every problem. I tell them you can do it, there's no such word as "can't", let me help you find the answer.
-
Permalink Reply by Joyce Baker on -
When you say benign, do you mean a suburb, or a rural area? Every geographic unit has its own challenges and opportunities. Much of what we consider 'organizing' is done among urban residents, but I have found that rural residents are every bit as capable and interested in learning these skills and applying them. You don't mention what your particular skill sets are, but in my opinion, all skills are useful in all circumstances if you apply yourself creatively.
-
Permalink Reply by Edward Paschich on -
My favorite daydream is to move to the Yukon in Canada. I figure that what with global warming, I can do alright farming, maybe broccoli. But then….I remember something I read once in that Chinese book, yes the Tao The Ching, it said:
“Know the white, keep to the black, and be the pattern of the world is to move constantly in the path of Virtue.”
And that other passage:
"Hence, the Sage is always good at saving men, and therefore nobody is abandoned; always good at saving things, and therefore nothing is wasted. This is called “following the guidance of the Inner Light.”
Hence, good men are teachers of bad men, while bad men are the charge of good men. Not to revere one’s teacher, not to cherish one’s charge, is to be on the wrong road, however intelligent one may be."
So, for a little while longer I am going to try to help this world be a better place right here where I live now, even if it is just taking a trash bag with me when I take a walk and pick up a few pieces of trash.
-
Permalink Reply by Scott Adam ALF on -
On one end of the scale you are at the greatest potential to help people on the other end of that same scale. If population density allows you to reach more, then help them there. The optimum is where you can be the most to yourself and them. Take for example "Engineers Without Borders". As you have already demonstrated the internet can transcend borders, inner city or otherwise. This new development is not part of our cognitive memmory, or imagination would have addressed this issue a long time ago. Best said as " Be the most that you can be", " From each according to their ability to each according to their needs."
-
Permalink Reply by Rain Mako on -
I moved to the country, 50 miles from the nearest city, 24 years ago. In all those years I have had to commute weekly, and sometimes daily to the city. Why? Because I need way more food than I can grow and process, I need medical care, I need cultural activities (music lessons and community college for my kids, a movie or a night out a couple times a year), I need building materials, sheets, clothes, ect. periodically which means shopping at stores. I need mechanic work on my car. I need to visit with family and friends. The list is endless.
Also, I have needed money all these years and that has meant working at a job. For awhile my husband and I worked at home on a craft business and we ended up driving more miles per year to sell our work at craft shows than we did commuting to work in later years.
I have racked my brain, squeezed my creativity, searched my heart, for all these years on ways to need less things from the city and my family has come up with ways to drive less, use less, but we are a long way from zero.
We are part of a far flung community out here in the back woods. Most people garden, and live simply. We built a community center to create culture closer to home, homeschooled our kids. But, the truth is we all drive to town far more often than we wish.
I am sorry to sound negative. The woods have provided us great spiritual nourishment, but we have never weaned ourselves from city. I can't do the math on exactly the resources we might have used or saved if we had stayed in the city versus where we have chosen to live, but I suspect the city may have been more ecological.
I love my home and couldn't afford at this point to move back to town, even if my heart would let me. If I knew then what I know now, I would have chosen to live closer to town. Making the city a better place to live is truly the hero's solution.
© 2008 Created by Bioneers on Ning. Create your own social network
