When I was young, you did what you had to do because, ultimately, you wanted to hangout, that is what mattered. As a result of trying to build up a reputation, seeking people, and in trying to make determinations about who you were (seeking self), you had a certain perspective. I mean, remember when getting a ride from Mom and Dad was embarrassing enough to make you walk?

Well, a lot has changed, look at the article “How Kids Lost the Right To Roam In Four Generations”…

When I was young between the ages of eight and twelve, I walked through the city of Philadelphia. I’d go to a shopping mall that was miles away to buy comic books, or to the library nearby that mall, or just to get out of the house. Sometimes on hot summer days, I’d walk to one of the neighborhood swimming pools. Some of my friends and I, would even venture long ways into the woods far away from our own neighborhood, which we would first have to reach by bike to begin with.

These days though, I have my doubts that any of this is usual activity, even if you live in a suburb, where, when I was young it was more than usual in such environments.

One thing’s for sure though, despite any problems with the community I grew up in, there was never a problem with traveling through-out the area, to find someone who would want to play. Sure, there were challenges, but, that is what was good about it. There were big roads to be careful on, but you got to see all the different cars and trucks. You got to pass all the different kinds of houses, and businesses. You got to interact with all the people. Of course, there were tight knit groups that might want to hassle you. But, then again, your own big brother might do that. Its all about how one learns to deal with those situations…

In traveling all around the world opened up. The diversity of the people, the places, and the situations made for an intense and thought-provoking environment. I mean, I can tell you for sure, it was this environment of challenges, and this “risk” and “freedom” that helped to make me more dynamic, and a person more interested with life in general.

It seems though as time has gone on, that air, or the sense, of the community, has gotten as far from that configuration as is possible. I draw that observation from instinct, as well as fact.

Today, children are put in carefully crafted environments, and are carted from and to these places, given almost no challenges. How can they ever learn how to deal with those situations? I expect they can’t, nor will they be able to learn as a result of this underdevelopment early-on.

My expectation is that we are building a social network of less dynamic, less interested individuals, who are more likely to become frustrated with their environment, and less likely able to solve their own problems. I feel that this life, now so filled with paranoid behavioral responses to our surrounding communities; this projection of an observed fear of the world, shown unto our children through our own eyes, will continue to breed this broadening despondence. And I wonder, if socially, were not just barely hanging in there.