A Sense Of Community

is what so many people miss nowadays. A real, organic community of the sort you read about in mid-20th century mysteries, when people living in villages and small town had time to drink a cup of tea with their neighbours and the family all came together for Christmas and kept in touch in between.

And when you get down to it, it's usually women who created it since men, even of the wealthier kind still had to provide a living or were busy with other pursuits of non-domestic nature. Women kept the home fires burning and the families and communities together and once the majority left home, the whole traditional system came down with a crash.

Domestic pursuits nowadays are considered boring and something for elderly folks and stay-at-home wives and mothers often feel marginalised with nobody to talk to during the day. I guess it's worse in the USA, from the stories I hear about my relatives living there since here we still do our daily shopping in nearby stores and women who bring kids to school have an opportunity to chat with other mothers. We also keep in touch with the neighbours more and it's not uncommon for parents and their grown-up kids to live in the same city their whole life.

Yet the nuclear family is under heavy assault from the forces of darkness modernity and extended family has deteriorated even further. I think it's a common problem in the West. Houses are getting bigger yet fewer people live in them. People only socialise at work and have no time for each other outside of it.

Luckily, on the other hand, we have a new sort of movement where people reject the debt-fueled life style, cut on their working hours and just try to enjoy their life and teach their children that there is more to it than being a serf for a big corporation. There are lots of encouraging videos on YouTube  dealing with it. I think it'll do us all good to always keep in mind that people are more important than stuff. Materialism is soo last century...