The Necessity of Community
I came to college wanting to study the environment. I wanted to learn the science of the world around us thinking this alone would enable me to seek solutions to the environmental problems being faced across the globe today. I began my freshman semester of college as a Physics major with an Environmental Studies minor and like most teenagers, thought I knew everything and had it all figured out. Yet, as I learned very quickly, I did not have it all figured out and I knew very little about sustainability. Sustainability is more than the science of the environment. It’s about environmental philosophy, psychology, sociology, and it even reaches far beyond the knowledge found within classroom walls. Sustainability is rooted in something that cannot be taught: community. For me, the realization of this gave environmentalism and sustainability a whole new face. Sustainability, I realized, is rooted in community because it needs community to thrive. How could a movement encouraging us to return to local systems and be aware of our impact upon the world around us survive without a foundation in community?
As I continued to ponder this, I looked around and realized our society is being drained of true face-to-face community. Walking to class I see people walking staring at their phones or listening to music rather than making conversation with fellow classmates standing at crosswalks. At coffee-shops I find an eerie silence occasionally broken by the sounds of an espresso machine or computer keyboard. I find myself surrounded by ‘neighbors’ that I don’t even know, and nobody speaks, only looks at their phones browsing Facebook for the 10th time or snap-chatting a friend in another place.
My grandfather is one of the wisest men I know. He values good stories, hard work, and above all, community. It seems nearly everyone knows him and sees him as a close friend. He often helps out a neighbor on his farm and they share the profits such as eggs, ham, and some really great tomatoes. “What happened to community like this, Kate?” he often asks me. Then I realize, instead of actually going out and building community such as this, we like videos about community on Facebook and retweet them on twitter. I am certainly guilty of this too. I’ll watch videos and read books on community building instead of trying to make changes in my life to focus less on Facebook and more on people. It’s time to put thoughts and words into action.
Its time rebuild community, to get to know our neighbors, to talk to each other in coffee shops and on the way to class. Its time to close our Facebook tabs and go on bike rides with our friends (insert shameless plug for CofC Bike Share program here). Its time to do more than ‘liking’ movements on Facebook and start putting in the hard work to positively impact our shared environment together as a community.
-Kate O’dell, Physics Major & Environmental Studies Minor and Bike Share Intern
