“I feel sad,” club president Bernard Kensky said.
And this is, indeed, very sad! Except, I suppose, for pessimists.
In all seriousness, I believe that this is more evidence to support my people as islands theory. In modern society, we have so much to worry about in our own lives (whether or not we actually have to worry about it, or we are just creating things for ourselves to worry about, is unknown) that we have no time to worry about others. Case in point: my own life. I don’t do a whole lot, when you think about it. I work, try to make dinner, and try to exercise. The rest of my time (in general) is spent on the computer, reading stuff and blogging about it. But when I start to think about adding things to my schedule, like dedicated exercise time, more work, and volunteering, I start to freak out, thinking that I don’t have time for anything. There are plenty of things I want to add to my life that are just for me, like studying Japanese or working on starting my own business. When I think about those things, it feels like adding volunteer work on top of all that is ludicrous.
Obviously, this all goes back to my lack of organizational and time management skills. I believe that many people lack these skills, and that this is a huge contributing factor in why subdivisions are collections of unrelated people instead of communities. Nobody gets their shit together. Life is like thought-work; there’s no plan anymore, no easy template for everyone to follow in order to achieve happiness. We all essentially have to make our own way in everything, and none of us have been prepared for that.
Unfortunately, instead of asking for help and working with our families and communities to deal with this problem, we instead focus inward, growing further and further away from other people.