November 22, 2009
UTNE READER

I Am Because We Are

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Eric Utne Utne Reader 
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As we prepare for Y2K, something surprising and unexpected and quitewonderful is going to happen. We're going to get to know our neighbors.Possibly for the first time in our lives, we will begin to know what itmeans to live in real community. Most Americans these days live in networks,not communities. We tend to work, study and hang out with people who arelike ourselves. We rarely associate with people who are not similar to usin terms of education, income, age, race, physical characteristics, andworldview. We put our old people in nursing homes and our young ones inday-care centers. Lawbreakers are kept behind bars and the physically disabledand the mentally ill are kept out of sight. We pay trained service personnelto handle these 'others' for us so we can get on with our careersand our personal growth.

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Y2K is an opportunity to change all this. Y2K is the excuse we've beenwaiting for to stop making so many compromises in how we know we should,and want to, live our lives. Y2K is our opportunity to stop our pollutingand wasteful practices, and start living more sustainable, environmentallyfriendly lives. Y2K is the conversational gambit that can lead to discussionsthat begin to knit webs of affiliation, care, and mutual support. Y2K canbring a family feeling throughout the community.

Perhaps, through the conversations started among neighbors because ofY2K, some day our children will come to know the experience of communityconveyed by this common phrase of the Xhosa people of southern Africa: 'Iam because we are.'

Eric Utne is founder and editor-in-chief of Utne Reader.

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