12:00am | The ideals that motivate We Love Long Beach continue to be developed, in part, from many different voices throughout the world. As we work “To Know and Serve…” I want to periodically share with you the books and thinkers that shape and influence our approach to the city. Our culture is ever-changing and I feel it is our responsibility to continually learn and adapt along with it. We invite you to participate by sharing responses, suggestions or challenges that might be valuable to this ongoing conversation about community.
This week’s book: Utopian Dreams: In Search of a Good Life, by Tobias Jones.
Tobias Jones describes himself as a travel writer. In his book, Utopian Dreams, Jones soberly faces the contemporary cultural shift toward consumerism, isolation, and individualism. He sets out on a journey accompanied by his wife and their baby to spend a year living in self-contained communities in Europe, searching for something, although he isn’t quite sure what. He writes, “At the beginning of this trip I thought living in community would be tough because you’re living cheek by jowl with people you might have little in common with, people who you wouldn’t necessarily choose as friends … But the true difficulty of living here is that there’s nowhere to hide. The place holds a mirror up to yourself and shows you what you’re really like.”
Growing up in Belmont Shore my life was for the most part comfortable. In an effort to challenge that sense of comfort, I recently moved to a neighborhood just north of downtown called Willmore City, the original name for Long Beach, with the sole purpose of becoming part of a new set of neighbors. I want to embrace my city by experiencing it the way tens of thousands of people in Long Beach do. I initially thought the hard part would be adjusting to the people around me in this new environment, but similar to Jones, I have realized that the real problem is within my own heart. I am starting realize that I am as much a part of the problem as the drug dealers and gang members that live next door to me. What I mean is that, though I am trying to make a difference where I live, it’s my own fears, insecurities, loneliness, and selfishness that cause the strongest urge to push back. I push back by ignoring them. I push back by being unconcerned and by failing to treat them with dignity, value, worth and respect. I think that life would be easier at times if I just stayed inside and stopped inviting my neighbors over for BBQs in my back yard and basketball games in the alley. It was easier when I my time was spent concentrating on the close circle of friends and family that have been with me my whole life.
To be honest, I long for community as much as anybody that I know. I desire to belong and to be accepted. I want to know my neighbors and be known by them all the same. Those things are slowly happening in my life more than ever and I am grateful. Yet I deeply connect with Jones’ longings and desires to be a part of something much bigger than myself and my close circles. I believe that a beautiful, connected Long Beach is more than just an optimistic ideal. I think it’s something that can be accomplished by neighbors who work together until it becomes a reality. Utopian Dreams was a mirror that allowed me to see the work that still needs to be done in my own heart. I only wish the work wasn’t quite so hard.
We Love Long Beach