Ok. Much has happened since my last post. I became unemployed, briefly self-employed, then hired, then sent to New York, then busy as heck trying to make things happen at my new job. Long story short: I’m not sure what passes for normal anymore, but would like to get back to it.

In the meantime, I was finally talked into signing up for Facebook by several old friends from high school. Wow.  What an incredible time sink! It’s fun to catch up with everyone, but if I thought boardgamegeek.com was a time sink, Facebook takes the cake.  If you could ever figure out how to make money doing it, you could have a full time job just keeping up with your friends on Facebook. (Oh, and hello to all my friends on Facebook who got updates because I’m now replicating this blog on my Facebook Notes)

It’s also an amazing example of a Community of Choice. I’ve talked about that previously, but let me explain. Communities used to be largely a geographical thing. You lived in a neighborhood, went to a church, hung out with people from work, etc. All of these associations are defined by geographic proximity for the most part. Sure, you could be a part of a larger community – the Chicago “theater” community or the “Northside Advanced Squad Leader players”, but again, these communities are defined by their geography.

In the digital age, we aren’t bound by geography anymore. We can form Communities of Choice digitally. I don’t have to hang out with a boring neighbor, or discuss books with an idiot at Church. I can go online and email Holly Jones about books and get an interesting discussion of Wuthering Heights (as an example only! If Holly’s read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, then we can talk books) that I enjoy more than the physical discussion locally. That’s really cool. In my opinion, the Internet saved pen and pencil gaming because it gave a geographically distributed sub-community (gamer geeks) a way to connect and reinforce that community.

However, there is a down side. The more time we spend online, the more we disassociate from our geographical community. How many of us know when the township officers meet? Or if there even IS a book club at the local library? Communities of Geography atrophy as we spend more time participating in virtual Communities of Choice.

No big deal. Or is it? Next time you go vote (the ultimate expression of  a Geographic Community, really), check out the average age of the poll workers. Chances are that they’re all about 70. What happens when they die? Will Boomers and Gen X get out of the house and volunteer to spend a day working the polls to insure fair elections? I hope so. I haven’t volunteered to work the polls yet, but I have spent a lot of  time doing local politics. At most meetings, I was the only one who still had kids at home. My generational cohort was elsewhere. And don’t even get me started on the future of lodges like the Moose and the Elks. They’re doomed.

Our cities and suburbs didn’t get to be ugly on purpsose. We were just all busy elsewhere and didn’t pay attention. What do you mean there’s no sidewalks here? What do you mean there’s no mass transit? Why didn’t someone think of that before? Truth, we and (let’s be fair here) our parents were busy elsewhere. Next time you’re at DisneyWorld on Main Street USA, ask yourself what’s so special about that street. Is it the lack of cars? The architecture? The (pretend, in this case) multi-use building with shops down below and apartments up top? Our communities don’t look like that because it’s easier not to worry about it and cheaper to build a prefab Walgreen’s box.

Alright, rant off. In any case, think about your geographic community the next time you post on a friend’s Facebook Wall. Your physical world will appreciate it! Next week: back to goofy ass farm stuff.