When I used to walk on the quad as a student, I would marvel at just how many classmates I had. I would think about the fact that I would probably never see some of the faces that I was passing again even though myself and the strangers around me were all so familiar with the same campus landscapes.
Now, though, it's easier for me to see how everyone is connected. I run into a student and/or a parent nearly every single time I go to the grocery store, for example, but it's not just people from work. I mean this in the least I'm-a-big-deal way possible, but it just seems like I've started to know a lot of people around here and they all know each other, too, for various reasons.
I can definitely see how this could be construed as a good thing. Sometimes, I do like it. Like the other day, I ran into the parents of one of my students while we were all volunteering at a food pantry that we were invited to by a good friend of mine. That was kinda cool, real community-like, y'know.
That said, I'm just not a smalltown person, and this place doesn't even qualify as a small town. It's not really to do with those kind of stereotypical everybody-knows-everybody's business issues -- and Lord knows it's not because any majority of people are stereotypically conservative over here. I'd just really much rather feel my insignificance in obvious ways every day, the way I feel while riding public transportation in a city, for example.
I almost can't believe I'm saying that; what, I want to teach in a big ol' impersonal school district where I don't have any valued input into the way things work? to live in a place where any kind of positive contribution I make to my community could only be so relatively tiny as to almost be pointless? where it's maybe easier for people to dehumanize one another since there's less of a chance that they'll have to interact with one another meaningfully?
It doesn't make sense when I really think about it, but really, sometime relatively soon I'm going to make a move towards someplace where I can feel a little less known. It'll be good for my level of modesty.
(ha. Ask anyone in Champaign-Urbana. My name rings out here. Right...)
3 comments:
Hey I got some impact in my big impersonal urban district. At least in my specific school. I mark that in the win category.
you are real into posting super-dark pictures on here lately (hipster).
also, hmmmm. i think that having to run into acquaintances all the time sucks, and is not really like a small town, where you probably can't find a person that you/your parents haven't always known. it's a different thing. a better thing, i think.
i'm pretty sure i believe that we are supposed to know our neighbors and be part of a community that isn't just on the surface, but i like the anonymity of cities too...i guess that's why cities are cool, because you can have a little neighborhood community and then not really know anyone.
i am so good at commenting on your blog these days, huh. unemployment, baby.
boom boom boom
you both make excellent points.
but my desire to walk around town and never see a single person i know or who knows me still remains.
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