I’ve been having one of those weeks where I’m feeling very frustrated about modern, urban life. Don’t get me wrong–most of the time, I love living in a city. I love that I can get just about anything I want or need. I like that I have convenient and relatively reliable public transit. I like the number of museums, theaters, and other events available. I like that the sheer number of people increases the odds of finding those with similar interests. I also like technolgy. I like that I can talk to people across the country or even the world just as easily as someone across the street.

But sometimes I wonder if we aren’t really screwing it all up.

On the one hand, I have a great community in CAYA. On the other, I feel disconnected from most of the people around me. I barely know my neighbors in my building, much less the ones in the next building over, or down the street. On Saturday, I was baking cupcakes for our Samhain ritual, and realized I was out of cocoa powder. I didn’t need much, just a 1/2 cup, but could I do the neighborly thing and knock on people’s doors to see if I could borrow some? No. It’s not done. Instead, I had to get in my car and drive to the nearest grocery store and pick some up, while my batter sat forlornly un-chocolated on the counter. On the one hand, we can reach out and find others with similar interests, no matter how obscure, on the internet. On the other, it’s awfully lonely to sit in front of a computer all the time.

Then, I began thinking about this article from Cracked. (Warning: Cracked is minorly NSFW and also not for the easily offended.) It talks about 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable. A couple of things jumped out at me. First, the idea that technology allows us to shield ourselves from people we don’t like–and I don’t mean the guy who bites the heads of chickens and terrorizes children and small animals, because you totally should avoid that guy, I mean the dude that annoys you because he has this weird nasal voice or the girl whose difficult to get along with because she always ha to be right even when she’s painfully wrong, those kind of people–so that we build up absolutely no tolerance to that. Think about it–we’re able to surround ourselves with people exactly. like. us. I don’ t mean similar life philosophies, I mean exactly the same. Same age group. Same exact ideology. Same education. And I can’t help but thinking–aren’t we missing out on something?

It’s about that time I start dreaming about living in a small town. But not with some of the negative aspects of small towns. There’s a risk, in a small community, of judgment, particularly for those of us who are somewhat left-of-center. (Hint: that’s why so many of us move to cities as soon as we can.)

But what if there was a different way? What if there were a way to create intentional communities that were based on some broadly similar goals–in my ideal, I’d say sustainability, respect for the Earth, religious and social tolerance–that still embodied some of the things that technology has allowed us to strip away? The kind of place where you know your neighbors and you have everyone from older folks to families to single people. Where you might have that annoying guy that everyone puts up with because he really does mean well, or that one person who knows everyones business. Where you care because that’s where you live. That’s your community. Not some strangers on a screen, but the people where you live.

I know it’s crazy. I know there are lots of realistic, practical reasons why this wouldn’t work. To begin with–finding a town, the little issue of money and jobs, the fact that most people aren’t exactly up to picking up their lives and doing something crazy on a whim. But..isn’t it a nice dream?