The Village Part 4

We live in strange times where we are led to believe all sorts of things that have only half truths or alternatively, half lies. We are led to believe that people on the other side of the globe are engaged in awful activities that somehow conflict with our own way of life. We have these thoughts and then we are led to believe that we live in a world community, a world village. Either thought can be silly or trite. If there are people elsewhere in conflict with our own activities, can not the same be said about us? And how can well over seven billion of us agree on anything specifically the way a village can work through some issue together.

I am as patriotic as they come. I love the country I live in even during the times I am critical of it. I love that we have our laws, and out borders and boundaries. I love that we have the freedom of speech. I also love that I do not agree with most of my countrymen, but I will gladly fight to the death to protect their freedom of speech. To further that thought, I love that there are other countries across the globe filled with people who have their own beliefs and laws and systems of doing things. In some cases, I feel like people deserve more, but I cannot judge an entire system adequately with the lens I see through.

When it comes down to it, I know we need systems and standards which may mean laws that equate to government. Whether or not I believe in governments at all is left up to debate, but I know we need an establishment. I wish we didn't. I wish we could live in our villages doing the things that human beings are supposed to be doing, and that we all subscribed to benevolence. If we treated each other and the environment in kindness, there would be no need for rules, or laws and for systems of establishments. I also think when there is any sizable amount of people in any geographical area either large or small, there must be rules so the mass of people can live in relative peace.

I also believe that many of the laws we know are oftentimes inapplicable in small villages filled with like minded people. I mean, if left up to people in who live closely in small places, the standards of behavior are different. If you lived in a small tent city in the high plains of Colorado, there is no need for overarching laws and government. You live in a small tent city where everyone has a job to do, or everyone does his own part for no other reason than everyone depends on it. When you're all in it, you do what you have to do. At the risk of sounding communist here, I mean this example more about how we treat one another when you can't simple fall away into a crowd or be a faceless member of big population of people. Anyone would behave differently in a smaller setting, you are more accountable for your actions.

But that's not the way we live. We do not live in small isolated villages. Most of us live in cities that have grown to monstrous proportions. We live in massive population centers and we have compartmentalized lives of work and social circles not to mention the people we see passing on the street, all faceless of course. We have social networks of people sometimes friends, sometimes virtual friends. We are free to build any village we want. We can manufacture our own village. Sometimes we're welcomed in, sometimes we're tolerated and sometimes we are not seen at all.

When building the village, there are a few things to consider. First, anywhere you live, you live there. The secret nooks, the quiet corners of your town or your neighborhood are there to discover, at all turns, a place to see anew daily. And the people? These are people who circle around you from loved ones to acquaintances to strangers. And there is always something to learn.

For me, I live in a small enough town that I can consider it a village. I have all the things that a town needs. I have markets that range from big corporate conglomerates to ethic markets that cater to a specific group: Latin, Asian or Indian and those who are curious. My village has all the passtime commodities like bowling and skydiving and pinball. There is theater, there are museums, there are paved walkways along intermittent rivers, streams and ditches.

What really exists in my village is a place of wonder. It's a place that makes me question things, or even question myself. I live in a place that will encourage my imagination and make me tax myself as a writer. I have stories from every corner, every building, every train yard. I would have this in any village anywhere I would ever choose to live. At any turn, I can fall in with the crowd, or recoil from it. I can be active or stoic. I have the choice to hide away and write, think, be quiet. I have the luxury of being a part of something bigger than myself. In my village I can be here now, and some day I can be there as I write it across the page.