Hosseini-Ludwig Family

Peaches

My neighbor asked me to pick up some fruit from the farmers market for her. They were in season and she wanted to get some while it was good, but her kids were acting up and she didn't think she'd make it before the market closed. This is the type of tiny community-building act I love -- asking a neighbor for a cup of sugar, or for a ride downtown if it's on the way, or any of the million things we request from each other in order to create the interdependence that makes community feel real.

I realized that these requests are becoming less common, largely due to the push to handle these needs through productization. Why would I ask for sugar? Instacart can get it here in under an hour. Why would I ask for a ride? Take a Lyft. In many cases, these options are in some sense better: they are truly on-demand, they're exactly what you need instead of approximately what you need. And for some the key benefit is that they're not imposing on anyone. Nobody wants to feel like they're a bother. Why be seen to be asking for sugar? Just push the button and nobody has to be troubled (besides the delivery person obviously, but for them it's a monetary transaction. If they didn't want to be doing it, they'd decline).

It's not the case that these companies have as their vision the atomization of social interaction and the destruction of community. It's a side effect. But one that's not remarked on enough. We are better off if my neighbor asks for peaches and I grab them. Better off financially, although neither of us care about gifting fruit. But also better off because we ought to have a flood of reminders that we live in a society, and we ought to do things for one another. Things that are mildly inconvenient but that underline our interdependence. The alternative is to pretend that we are completely independent, to embrace that illusion until we have a real need and then step outside to find out that the relationships we let wither were actually a load-bearing pillar of our way of life.

Hosseini-Ludwig Family

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