Sitting at the riverside in small-town Alaska, I'm pondering the words of a business owner I got talking to a few minutes before. I had sat down on a bench beside main street and was enjoying the warm sunshine for a moment, people-watching while I took a brief break, and the guy had been sweeping the sidewalk nearby. In the typically-Alaskan and friendly way, he said hello and we soon got into a pleasant conversation about the things we love about living here. Working in a tourist town, he was very much enjoying chatting with a local and I found his company quite interesting as well.
He's originally from Norway, although he's lived here in Alaska for over thirty years, and one of the things we got talking about is how Alaska still retains some elements of simplicity and community that many other places have lost. Coming from Europe, he said that was one of the things that attracted him about the way of life and the people here: there's still an aspect of togetherness that much of our culture has left behind in the ever-present chase for more. In order to survive here, you kinda need to know and find your people because it's challenging enough living here that you need to learn who you can trust to help you out when needed. When a lot of other places in the world have gotten used to the idea of an independent life where you can have so much done for you at the click of a button and you can keep yourself company without the need for a wider circle, Alaskans know that won't work here. More than once, I've called on my friends or neighbors (or they've just offered) for something, and it's made me feel safer to know people would be there whenever or however necessary.
But then the guy said something even more profound. He spoke of how it took him years to realize the power of sitting around the dinner table. Growing up, he noted, he didn't understand the vital importance of exchanging perspectives and news over food and building human connection. As he's aged, he's watched people get used to the idea of being alone more and more and its caused him to treasure those early memories from his own childhood. We both discussed how these simple pleasures have become a rarity in our current day, making it even more valuable when somebody dares to buck the trend and actually build authentic connection that lasts... sort of like we did at the street-side that day. A fairly short but meaningful conversation with this immigrant warmed my heart the entire rest of the day - one human building a bridge to another.
As I took in the peaceful flow of the river later that afternoon, letting the stress go out of my body and the fresh air fill my lungs, I kept coming back to what he had said and it suddenly struck me...
In today's world, it's a fight to maintain the simple way. It takes all the intention in the world to slow and do the things that make for lasting connection and inner peace. Lose these essentials and the simple life will become a thing of our collective past. But hold onto them, and civilization just might have a chance.
Sometimes we discount the seemingly mundane that makes up our daily lives: the conversations on the front porch, the hospitality around a dinner table, the wave of neighbors walking by, the phone call from a friend to check in on you, watching children play in the backyard, harvesting flowers or veggies from a homegrown garden, the smell of fresh cookies out of the oven. These were the common things that our ancestors knew made for a meaningful life - a life of health and strength and connection that so many lack today. Part of why the statistics are now showing a painfully obvious epidemic of loneliness is that we've wandered from this earthy, grounded life full of the pure and authentic things that make for a whole human... and now we're greatly suffering.
If we hope to return to some form of lasting connection and purposeful living, we need to rediscover and fight for the simple way. We need to make decisions that allow us to tune into real life happening right in front of us and the opportunities for love and meaning that await us around every turn if we'd only notice. The pressure to constantly be engaged in the online world, to fill our schedules to the max with no time for spontaneity, to exhaust our bodies, minds, and souls by trying to keep up a stress level none of us were meant to exist in? Oh, it's real! And it's going to be hard to resist. You know that as well as I do. But the invitation to building a life that you're proud of - one that allows you to heal and become who you were meant to be - that is going to take effort and time... lots of creatively-opened time. And not everyone is willing to do that.
Perhaps we can't reverse this loneliness trend in a day. After all, it's taken decades to get here. But it started with little choices that, eventually, added up to this fractured world we're living in now. So why wouldn't the answer start with little choices as well? Why wouldn't the solution begin with something as easy as sitting around the dinner table more (with no devices allowed!) and talking about each other's day! Why wouldn't a simple step like expressing gratitude to the cashier or giving a smile to a stranger be the launching point for a wave of connection that our world needs so desperately!
Not all of us will pick up stakes and move to the wilds of Alaska or build a life off-grid. But we all have the power to push back against the constant call of our society to chase what isn't lasting in the end. One day, at the finish line of our life, what we remember isn't going to be our wealth or our titles or our social media likes - it's going to be our loved ones and the memories we made together. We'll regret that we didn't make more of them and treasure these moments of simplicity. We'll wish we hadn't let these small miracles pass us by. So let's not be a part of this club that someday wakes up to the fact that we've done it all wrong and added to the rush instead of been part of calling others and ourselves into wonder and peace and quiet strength.
Maybe that guy is right...
Perhaps it really does start around places like the dinner table and, just maybe, it can start with you and me.
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