It’s been quiet here at home lately. Grey and overcast, rain morning,
noon, and night. A good time to rest and recover from a lot of busy
weeks. I’m essentially an introvert, and while I enjoy visiting it tends
to take a lot out of me. I’ve always preferred long conversations over
coffee to loud concerts or clubs. I’m on the couch this morning, my
wife’s dog is next to me. The dog kept us up a lot last night. It’s
nearly silent, but for the breath of the dog and the clack of the keys.
I watched “Amazing Stories” on TV the other day, the one about a guy
who went back in time to 1919. While he spent most of the show trying to
get back to 2019, he found that he actually preferred life 100 years ago
and wound up staying. It’s an interesting thought experiment to consider
the things that we’ve gained over the past century, like civil rights,
women’s rights, advances in medicine, heating and cooling, the ability
to stay in touch over long distances, but also to think about the things
that we’ve lost along the way too. Independence, civility, an overall
slower pace of life. I live in a small town and I think a lot about what
could revitalize it. Folks that lived here for a long time say that it
used to be different, the buildings that are crumbling and empty around
the square used to be stores that were stocked and full, kept in top
shape. A person could walk down to the square and see their neighbors
going about their business.
The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker.
What I miss is the opportunity for someone to open a shop selling what
they’ve made with their own hands, and be able to make a living off of
it. People in town say that things changed when the state put in a
highway that bypassed the town, but I think that was only a symptom… a
sign that pointed to a real cause. Things fell apart because people
stopped shopping in the town. They stopped shopping in town because they
could get things cheaper if they drove 20 miles to shop at Walmart
instead. The desire for cheap goods has decimated small towns and small
businesses, making us dependent on massive corporations that exploit the
world’s poorest and most vulnerable to make a $5 t-shirt.
What I wouldn’t give for a generation of makers and independents to turn
this around. Sometimes I like to write or envision future scenarios
where that’s taken place. Not that there’s not a place for big
companies. Something like the MacBook or iPhone simply can’t be created
by a mom & pop shop, but they could definitely be made here, by us.
We still have a fantastic barber and a, well, mediocre doctors office in
town. Although, of course, the doctors office just recently stopped
being independent and is now part of a regional system. Now when I call
to make an appointment I get re-routed to someone 25 miles away instead
of a mile down the road. I was in the office one day when an elderly
gentleman was waiting in line right in front of me, and I asked him
about how things had changed over the years. He didn’t have much time to
talk but the description he gave was striking. I asked him what happened
and as he was walking out the door he turned and said “everything got
big, big, big!”
I don’t want to go back in time to 1919, I rather enjoy the privileges
and comforts that we have now (especially considering that the idealized
past so many think about was generally only great if you were white and
male), although I also believe that a lot more of us could benefit from
living more of Teddy Roosevelt’s “Strenuous Life”. I want to go forward.
I want to live in the future where we’ve figured out these things. Where
we’ve created self-sustaining communities of independent makers, linked
by high-speed rail systems and electric cars powered by the wind and the
sun. Where we all grow gardens full of good food, and we know where the
goods we buy come from, and maybe even know who made them. Where we know
our neighbors. Where we know the mailman’s name and recognize his
uniform and know approximately when to expect him. Where teachers are
revered for the responsibility they have. Where the ability to fix a
broken thing is given the respect it deserves.
I wish I knew how to make that vision a reality, and now in this
isolated time of the Coronavirus, it seems more relevant than ever. We
spent too many years getting big, what we need now is to get small
again.
