Such was the scene this morning after a jarring wakeup call. The sound of shrieks and screams bled through my window with the warm yellow bath of winter sunlight. I peel my eyelids apart—their movement slow with exhaustion—to see what’s happening outside the window; I can’t. The lawn is a floor below, and I can’t see anything. These things happen on weekends; I make my pillow’s acquiantance once more, hoping the noise will pass and sleep return.

Ten minutes pass. Indifference turns to annoyance. Twenty minutes. Annoyance to frustration. One half hour. Frustration is now anger. The bathroom door locks—someone else has awoken, so I’m not alone. I climb reluctantly from my bed to peer out the window. Thiry people I’ve never seen before are milling around the lawn, playing idiotic games at a volume only rivaled by sold-out sporting venues. Ridiculous. There’s an RHF office in the basement, surely it’s them. I need a plan.

RHF’s not going anywhere. I’m not getting any more sleep. I’m too mad about the situation to really be bothered by anyone else, so I need out. As I get dressed, I lob ideas around in my head. Mountain Lake… too far; the Cascades… too much hiking…; duck pond… too close; the New River… no objections? That settles it—I’m history.

So I drove myself down to the river at 10:45, because RHF saw fit to play raucous games beneath our windows at 10:15. It’s most convenient for them—never mind the fact that most college students are still asleep at 10:15 in the morning. Not to waste an entire morning, I grab my camera and tripod on the way out; I might as well make something good of an aborted slumber.

But this is not an enchanting story, and storytelling is not my business here. This, to me, illustrates a more entrenched issue I and some friends have contemplated recently. Especially with the news of late.

Cult of individuality

So Western society has grown a culture centered—in part, at least—around the individual. In the United States, the concept of individuality is much stronger, I think, than elsewhere. It all stems from the premise (or belief, more accurately) that an individual can start in any walk of life and—by good fortune or ill—end in any other. Barring rare and special cases of overflowing altruism, every individual wishes to move up in the world. A reasonable expectation at face value.

Now add a dash of practicality to the situation. We, as a society, instill this belief so strongly that it becomes expectation. In such a situation, even maintaining your social strata appears “lazy.” Nobody wants to be looked down upon, so your only option is upward motion at any cost. This is not to say a desire for upward mobility is bad—our problem is that we focus on the idea so strongly, so subtly, that we lose focus on our fellow man.

Our biggest mistake.

I saw it this morning with the RHF activity, planned for early on a Saturday morning, outside a building full of slumbering individuals. But nobody, I dare say, paused to consider that. You can see it on the road, too; in general, we lack consideration for anyone else. “Get out of my way, I’ve got somewhere to be.” As if nobody else does. Look around college campuses; it’s blatant.

Consider student organizations: how many serve their listed purpose, and how many become resumé-builders? Greek life: is it about fellowship and community service, or about socially networking your way to a higher tier of society, regardless of qualification? Friendships: I dare say our idea of this is better described by the word “acquaintance,” a word whose meaning and connotation seem mostly lost on people. We just blanketly call everyone friends. We’ve invented the term “close friend” instead.

I’ve seen it with a lot of people, and I’ve got nobody in mind, just my life’s experience as a whole. Friendships often seem less about sharing common ties, and more about “what can you do for me?” The precise answer will differ, but the premise remains approximately the same. If something goes awry, we all abandon ship; we flee for higher ground; we graze where the grass is greener. This is less true of the friends I have, I hope, because I try to pick carefully; however, I’ve not really leaned on anyone for a long time.

Because someone might whisk that shoulder out from under you, and the ground is particularly unforgiving.

Evidenced by recent news

Let me start with an intriguing but innocuous story. A recent study showed that Americans, of all countries, have the fewest “close friends” of all. When life goes down the tubes, we either keep to ourselves, or simply lack friends who might actually care and step in. This is a two-pronged issue: on one front, we’re fickle and quick to shun hardships if we can; on the other, many of us naïvely adopt a policy of self-sufficiency because of the former problem. I’m in the second camp, and try earnestly to make sure that none of my friends feel the same. But rarely does anyone call on me to live up to my promises, and of that I’m guilty too. However, it makes my day if I ever have the chance to turn a good deed.

Now, here’s the other reason I’m writing today:

There has been a rash of school shootings over the past two weeks, like it’s some sort of horrid fashion statement. I don’t know what our problelm is. I don’t know why this happens. I wish I did, but I don’t, and that bothers me. Surely it’s, in part, a problem with some of our legal premises. But I think equally important is the staunch individualism we have. As a good friend of mine said, there’s no “sense of comeraderie.” But that’s the hard problem to address, so nobody tries. I hope that this nonsense will taper off sometime. Whether or not I’ll be around when it does, I can’t say.

We care about doing well for ourselves. We care much less about doing well (or good) for our country and world. You can see this in individuals as well as our larger instruments, corporations. In politics, too: we vote too often on “what’s good for me,” not “what’s better for everyone.” Given the choice between advancing the self or the whole, the common choice is the former.

A small step is greater than none

So I’ve discussed this before, but I try my best to be a really good friend. I try my best to think about what’s best for everyone. I want to do good in the world, as best my skillset will allow. I’m glad I’ve found a company that, I think, is interested in doing good alongside doing well. But in the U.S., I’m one of 300 million, and one of 6 billion in the world. Like a pebble in the river so swift and strong, it doesn’t seem like much.

But it’s the best I can do. And if other people could figure that out, we might just make the world a better place one piece at a time.

Slowly.

I have a bad habit of looking for the good in people, and in most people I’m pretty sure there’s some. I just wish we weren’t so success-driven as to fear using it sometimes. At least I’ve got my part figured out, I think. This has been jogging around my head for a while now, and I’m glad to have finally written it out. A simple credo we could all use to remember, as a conclusion:

Love thy neighbour.

A breath of fresh morning air, down by the river.