Community. Not community service. Not community centers. Not community spirit. Just community. I think I’ve come to the realization that, at least for me, community is at the heart of what makes me happy. People always ask me what I enjoy doing, and I’m never sure how to answer. Let me try and walk you through my dilemma. Bear with me as I take you down many different thought paths, because I’m trying to really get to the core of this question. I can definitely tell when I’m in a situation that I don’t like, and these situations do have some common themes: I usually dislike activities that involve waiting, sitting still, prolonged silence, and physical exercise, to name a few (although the last one is kind of a joke). And I can remember feelings of happiness: My trip to Iceland with Gaul and the family, Februaries in St. John with my dad (and Gaul once), driving through Boston, music blaring as we headed to Fenway for a movie (with Gaul), and closing campfire the last year I went to summer camp. Aside from the obvious conclusion that I really enjoy spending with Gaul, there is one thing all of these “happy times” have in common, and that is a sense of community. I want to explain that saying community makes me happy is different from saying that I love being around people all the time, because I don’t. In fact, in high school, I spent most of my nights and weekends either alone or with a few close friends. By community, I mean the feeling that I belong somewhere. It’s the reason kids form secret treehouse clubs, teenagers create cliques, and adults become members of country clubs – they are searching for community. So I’ve solved it. What I enjoy doing is any activity that gives me a sense of community….but that’s not really it. There are times when I’ve been amongst friends, with the utmost feeling of community, but I still get bored eventually.
To be honest, I get bored with most things pretty quickly (hardly a surprise for a kid with ADHD, I know, but still worth pointing out). When it’s hot, I want cold. When it’s cold, I want hot (kind of like the Katy Perry song). On even the most wonderful vacations, I am usually ready to go home after about two weeks. I’ve even started to get bored with mountaintop vistas and sunsets. This boredom comes in handy with women: if I’m not bored with a girlfriend after a few months, I know she’s a keeper! Gaul once told me he loves New England because it has seasons. I stole that line from him and decided that the type of weather I like most is “seasons”. So maybe change is what makes me happy. I mean, who doesn’t love giving someone a five dollar bill and getting back change. Plus, Obama brought some change to Washington, and I liked that.
But too much change can be a bad thing, and I think it’d be wrong to say that change is the main thing I enjoy. I mean, I’ve always preferred a long-term relationship to a quick hook-up, so I do enjoy some sort of constant in my life. Plus, constants were always my favorite part of calculus (they’re so easy to derive)!
Let’s go backwards for a second. I think I was closest to answering the question “What do you like to do?” when I was talking about community. I just need to tweak the definition of community a bit, and I think I know how to do it. I went to see Hairspray at NSHS last Saturday (It was wonderful; congratulations to everyone involved, especially Max, Sophia, and Alissa), and it made me really nostalgic. For a minute, I wanted to just hang out with all my friends in lower grades who are still in high school; you know, just insert myself back into NSHS life. After a few awkward conversations with people, however, I realized why this community wasn’t making me happy. It’s because, as much as I still enjoy hanging out with my younger friends, our relationship is built on the past, not the future. It’s great to reminisce about old times and fond memories, but it’s hard to put effort into a relationship that doesn’t have a future. Like, with girls, I absolutely love the “wooing” period, where every interaction leaves me with the feeling that our relationship is moving forward. I am a planner, and I set goals. Progressing towards those goals makes me happy. When I identify someone I want to be friends with, sometimes I have more fun trying to win their approval than I do actually being friends with them. I know, I’m a sick person, but it’s who I am, so “take me baby, or leave me” (that’s from Rent in case you’re not a theater nerd . So that’s my answer: I like moving forward and achieving goals. But when a friend wants to grab coffee or hang out for an afternoon and they ask me “What do you want to do?”, saying that I want to "move forward and achieve goals" is hardly an appropriate answer J
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