can Venn diagrams remind us of our shared humanity?
focus on what we have in common first
Venn diagrams to connect with neighbors, Amazon hauls a year later, and SNL coming in to trash fast fashion
🎧 for those who prefer to listen
can Venn diagrams remind us of our shared humanity?
What makes a good neighbor? Do they have a lot in common with you? Do they live nearby or far away? Do they provide some type of support or community strength?
I've been thinking about the power of strong communities, particularly local communities, to solve many of today's problems. Whether on mental health crises, climate change, inflation, physical health, municipal solvency, or social division, a lack of community and declining neighborliness contribute to each of these circumstances. Many reasons we feel unhappy, anxious, stressed, or disconnected entangle with the degradation of neighborhoods and communities.
Here are a few examples where this shows up:
Auto-centric infrastructure limits walking as well as serendipitous conversation and connection with neighbors. Life is more expensive when you need a car for daily activities. Driving in traffic is stressful. Cars create little bubbles of isolation that cause us to miss much of what’s happening around us when we drive from place to place. Vehicle emissions pollute the air and contribute to global warming. (This list could go on…)
Life is more expensive when we buy everything for ourselves instead of borrowing and sharing with neighbors, friends, and community organizations like libraries. Not only do we spend money to buy things we could borrow, but we also live in larger houses or rent storage units to store everything.
Children spend less time outdoors playing with neighborhood kids and more time indoors on screens without the neighborliness of other adults in the community looking out for the safety of neighborhood kids. This informal oversight was much more common and allowed parents to let children play outside without constant, direct supervision.
I know I'm not alone looking for stronger neighborhoods and local communities to improve our lives. Here are some examples of people and organizations diving more deeply into these ideas.
strong local communities foster connection, resilience, and prosperity
Organizations like Strong Towns advocate for development to rebuild our towns and cities in ways that create connection, community, and prosperity. The “Suburban Experiment” isn’t working. This non-profit organization creates resources to help people bring their ideas of humanity-first development to life in local areas while creating financially sound and resilient communities. And no surprise, communities that are designed to be human-centric are better for the planet, too.
Jonathan Haidt and his team at
regularly touch on lost neighborliness as one factor in kids' defaulting to devices as entertainment. Connected neighbors create safe spaces for unstructured and mostly unsupervised play for kids, an important antidote to cell phone addiction and phone-based childhoods. It's a lot easier to send kids outside without a watchful parent when neighbors generally look out for the well-being of the kids in the community.Movements like the Buy Nothing Project, Little Free Libraries, and Little Free Pantries create a culture of sharing our abundance at a hyperlocal level to connect with neighbors and lift each other to make everyone in the community better off. Projects like these also help residents save money and reduce waste.
This article from
caught my attention when he highlighted how the Bible discusses neighbors as having relatively close physical proximity. He implies that being a good neighbor might have an element of spatial relation, which makes a lot of sense. We still need people tackling big, global problems, but if we each work to improve the lives of our physical neighbors and local communities, the ripples will spread.These are just a few examples, but they highlight how fostering connection and mutual support among local neighbors improves everyone's lives. Lately, too many of us have sunk into a culture of division and hate, drawing hard lines around our social circles to exclude those with whom we don’t agree on almost everything.
So, how can each of us be better neighbors? Volunteering for local community organizations, serving on municipal boards and task forces, supporting local businesses, and engaging with organizations like the ones I mentioned above are great options. But what if we start by simply mending and building relationships with the people with whom we share a street, a church, a school, a grocery store, or a library?
let's visualize with a Venn diagram
What if we charted our neighbors and ourselves on a Venn diagram of beliefs, values, and interests? We're all complex people, so I'm not suggesting a literal exercise to do this. But theoretically, it will look something like this.
Each neighbor is one colored circle, and we have varying opinions, priorities, and interests, identified by letters on the diagram. We have overlap with nearly everyone in some capacity. Some neighbor circles converge closer to completely overlapping more than others.
media’s fake outrage machines seek to divide us
Thanks to the media fake outrage machine (which gets a massive eye roll from me), we often focus on the points within our circles that live far away from each other, our biggest differences (like A vs C or B vs D). Making us mad and fearful makes schmucks like Tucker Carlson a lot of money, even if he sacrifices every ounce of his integrity on his way to the total bullsh*t depot.
So he and others encourage laser focus on the areas of our Venn diagrams that diabolically diverge. They tell ridiculous lies to push the A and C points or B and D points further away from each other. It’s working, and they’re profiting handsomely off of our pain and division along the way.
focus on the overlap
But what if we stopped sending our eyeballs and social security checks into the clown coffers and connected with our neighbors about that lovely space where our circles come together (I, J, K, L, and M points)? The fake outrage mouthpieces might not make so much money. They might have to fly commercial instead of private jets (gasp).
Meanwhile, we might discover that our neighbor flying that “stupid” flag shares a beloved hobby with us or is passionate about the same cause. Imagine what might happen if we chatted about our mutual loves for sports, sunflowers, souffle, science, sewing, sand dollars, or ski resorts before we screamed about politics. We might even enjoy experiencing that hobby together.
What if we found one or two social or policy issues within the coveted center of overlapping circles and connected on those topics before skimming our respective circles' circumferences, which are so far apart? What might finding common ground before charging after the differences be like? We all know it's much harder to hate the neighbor you see each week in your beloved book club than the grouchy lady down the street you've never met.
This lack of humanity in our relationships is on steroids behind screens. Keyboard muscles and anonymous avatars breed unfounded confidence and a lack of empathy for connecting with others with whom we don't agree. If you can’t say it to someone in person, it’s probably best not to type it online.
connect over what we have in common
Let's build bridges between our neighbors over what we have in common. Volunteering for, donating to, shopping at, participating in, visiting, and advocating for community organizations is wildly important. Action is the antidote to despair and anxiety; doing this together is even more impactful. Maybe it starts with your shared love of homemade lemon curd. 🍋
Prioritize finding the overlap in your neighborhood Venn diagrams. That doesn't mean our differences dissolve, but it requires us to see the humanity in those with whom we disagree. Seeing faces and families helps us connect in a way that brings us together. Commonality creates a solid foundation for having harder conversations when we disagree.
Go for a walk and say hi to your neighbor. Find and share your common ground. And tell the media personality profiting off fake outrage and fear-mongering to go take a hike. We’ll be happier, healthier, and better off for it.
a few other eco things
Sustainable packaging isn’t always straightforward. Here are some things to consider.
After I trashed Shein and Temu (here and here), who create a lot of trash themselves, my husband sent me this. Funny… because it’s true?
This book can help you move toward a zero-waste kitchen! Perfection isn’t the goal, but plenty of great ideas are here to try.
I would also like to see what last summer’s haul looks like now. Did it last?
just because
Your neighbors might try this tactic discussed by
powers if you attempt to tackle hard conversations about complex topics, but it’s not productive, and we’ve found solutions to hard problems for as long as we’ve existed.Speaking of being a good neighbor, this piece from
was a really interesting way to think about how we show up as good neighbors for those we cannot help.Living backward; I think about this a lot.
weekly mini challenge
action is the antidote to despair
Connect with a neighbor you don’t normally hang out with over something you have in common. Maybe it’s just a conversation, or maybe you’re feeling ambitious enough to ask them to hang out and do the thing you both love together. You be the judge. But they might surprise you.
Until next time, I hope you’re having the best week available to you. Don’t hesitate to comment or leave questions. I love hearing from you all.
Jen
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Jen Panaro is a self-proclaimed composting nerd and advocate for sustainable living for modern families. Through her writing, workshops, and podcast guesting, she helps others find ways to incorporate sustainability into their everyday lives more easily while appreciating the joy along the journey.
When she’s not writing and creating, she’s a serial library book borrower, a messy gardener, a composting tinkerer. She’s a wife and mom of two boys and spends a lot of time in hockey rinks and other sporting venues watching her boys tear it up for their teams.