Fric Spruyt is a property owner and property manager in Brattleboro and a member of the town’s energy committee.
BRATTLEBORO-In this moment when everything seems to be getting more chaotic every day, everywhere you look, it might seem like a strange time to imagine a long term vision for a thriving world.
I would argue that this is as good a time as ever. Had we collectively (not just a handful of visionary freaks) done so decades ago, we would be much better off now.
But we can’t go back, and there’s nothing like a disaster to shake things up, and open the door to doing things differently.
We have gone from the post-World War II consumer boom taking our focus away from our away from tight-knit communities and into suburban developments with no real social focus, which made us good consumers.
With the digital revolution, it is likely that we have never met many of our “friends” in real life (“IRL”).
Social media has made a mockery of real friendships and real discourse.
The inability of people to even tell if they’re interacting with a real human or a bot, whether the subject is of national interest, or our town election, should have us all concerned.
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The good news is that we can still choose to talk with our neighbors.
I did a lot of that recently, and found them remarkably open to the idea.
I have also been having great conversations with town- and state-level leaders. They all seem interested in trying to find better solutions to the challenges we face.
As anywhere one looks, they can get stuck in policy silos. At least in Vermont, I don’t think this is an intractable problem.
As the we watch the broader world descend into chaos, our best response should be to find ways to strengthen our communities.
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We need to make stronger real personal connections, and at the same time find as many ways to be as self-reliant as individuals and as a community as possible.
This means building local capacity to take care of as many of our real needs — for instance, food, shelter, transportation, medical, as well as being able to make and maintain the equipment necessary to support us.
A few decades ago, we had a fair amount of capacity to do these things. We are quickly losing those who have the practical knowledge.
To the degree we can rebuild this capacity, we will be able to resist being buffeted by the insanity beyond our borders.
It also sets us to be part of a thriving society, if others follow our lead.
We see all around us how easy it is to break things, both physical and institutional.
Building things, especially those that we want to last, is a long-term investment.
Let’s wisely invest in a better future.
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