Where You Are Is Where You Are
Our local places should be the centre of our attention - not the nation state nor the world
Where you are is where you are. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Perhaps too simple, too obvious — or to put it bluntly — it’s blatantly obvious, isn’t it? But oh! how often we ignore that which is plain, simple, and familiar. When coupled with the passing of years, familiarity has the unfortunate habit of devolving into over-familiarity. This state of mind predictably gives rise to ignorance and the ‘invisibilising’ of that which is right in front of us — that which is obvious and should be well-known. And one of the many forgotten ‘right in front of us truths’ is the fact that where we are is really where we are — it is our home, our community, our place. Not over ‘there’, where the pastures may well be greener or life more exciting — but here in this specific place with these specific people, these unique buildings and streets, and these precious habitats and communities of species.
This is where we are.
I forget, sometimes, that Chelmsford is where I live and not London. It is an elementary mistake to make: the health and prosperity of Chelmsford should be my highest priority1; Chelmsford’s news should be on top of my news reading pile; Chelmsford’s history should comprise many of the stories I hear and tell — and its streets I should often wander. But there is a problem: Chelmsford is pretty boring. Just ask Charles Dickens who once remarked: “If anyone were to ask me what in my opinion was the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the earth, I would decidedly say Chelmsford.” I may dispute stupid but dull I can heartily agree with — our high street is saturated with cut-out-copy chain stores, our cathedral is tiny and unimpressive (and has somewhat dubious claims to “cathedralship”), and most of the historic buildings have been stripped away to make way for hideous modernist shopping centres. A city made boring through stupid, short-sighted decisions and the ‘invasive dynamic’ of efficiency — welcome to Chelmsford2.
London (a mere 30 miles south-west as the crow flies) is, on the other hand, saturated with history, grandeur, and prestige. It is the place where history continuously pours forth in the deals struck, speeches given, and laws established within the confines of this ancient metropolis. Breaking news of supposed ‘utmost importance’ regularly emanates from the prestigious streets of the capital, and old bookstores scattered around the city coupled with the many, many museums satisfy my curiosity with their well-stocked shelves full of ancient treasures and new discoveries. It is tempting, therefore, to make London the place where my mind lives, separated from my physical place-bound reality.
But I must come back to Chelmsford. For Chelmsford not London will always be home — even if (as it seems likely)3 I one day move away. I will always be a ‘Chelmsfordian’ at heart4. This small city, surrounded by lowland fields and ancient woods has shaped and cultivated me into the nature-loving man that I am — thus it should be obvious that London could not be my home. The small churches in this small city have made me love small congregations with close knit community, and even the boringness of the architecture and lack of tradition has had a positive effect in helping me to cherish and appreciate the small fragments of beauty when I find them. I am very much a born and bred Chelmsfordian.
But perhaps the most important reason I must return my gaze to Chelmsford is that this city, its people, and its wildlife lay a claim on me — a claim of responsibility which every inhabitant of every city, town or village has — to do good to the place you are in and one day leave it in a more convivial state than you first came to it. Where you are is where you are — and is where you must be5. As Wendell Berry wisely once said “Do you think it could be a general rule that the only place one is urgently needed is at home?” The more I have pondered these wise words, the more heartily I find myself answering “yes”.
It is worth repeating that by failing to realise, appreciate, and accept that we are where we are, we overlook what is right in front of us — the very people and things which should be of upmost importance. These are the objects and realities, the people and places, and norms and institutions that make up our every day. They directly influence our lives, and we, through the relationships and actions we form, directly influence them. The health (or otherwise) of our local community and local wildlife significantly affects and directly concerns us. We must realise that their health or degeneracy is, in part, caused by our local actions. Our responsibility for those things, peoples and creatures that make up our place should be obvious — bluntly so. These are the relationships by which our life will be judged, these are the places, buildings, stories, and habitats we will hand down to the next generation, and these are the places and things which bear our name. But, in this modern, rootless age we too easily forget this. And our eyes, oh, how they do wander…
Wander, they do, to where we think we primarily are (or more accurately, want to be). They drift to the greener pastures of elsewhere: to the lofty heights of the city lights — the places of importance, wealth, power (that make the 10 o’clock news, and the 6 o’clock, 8 o’clock, and so on), or to the picture-postcard rural idyll, with the perfect community, perfect garden, and perfect cottage.
These are the places we wish we were, the places that we like to think would fulfil us or complete us, or at least provide more spark and life than where we currently are. Even if we do not wish to live elsewhere, the importance and power of other places catches our attention and concern until we become preoccupied with what happens “over there” and not here where we are. A good benchmark of ascertaining where our focus lies is to examine our news reading habits. Do we know more about what is happening at a global or national level than what is happening in our local community? Probably.6 Too easily then are we addicted what really does not concern us, that which we have not the power to change, and that which will be replaced tomorrow by more irrelevant but oh, so important sounding news.
Our governments and national corporations fuel this sense of ‘dislocated rootlessness’7 by eroding our sense of the local and replacing it with a national vision: “The national is all important” they say, “we all need to come together and grow our national GDP and we all need to come together to contribute to solving our national problems”. And if you haven’t got the message, posters paid for by the government will constantly remind us of our national-scale duties and the primary importance of our big economy-boosting cities.
They have been remarkably successful. For many of us, the national has supplanted the local in our imaginations and affections regardless of the fact that local concerns are more likely to match our own concerns, are concerns that more directly influence us, and finally are problems that we have the power to do something about. And the tragedy is that all this — the national governmental spin, the reprogramming and re-entering of our locational affections, and the centralisation efforts — goes on while the very policies our governments churn out at best neglect, or at worse, positively harm, our local areas in favour of those big-name players and big-name places in the national economy. Governments will rush to the rescue of a bank or a big city — but our local pub, the bulwark of the community and perhaps the only social meeting place for many? Forget it.8
But we mustn’t stop at the national level. When we listen to the global institutions, we find our responsibilities are even bigger than what our governments tell us. In our modern, hyper-connected world, we all need to play our part in the “the burden of world saving”. Our planet is under threat from economic downturn, climate change, ballooning poverty, and global diseases — and you, dear reader, are expected to play an instrumental part in saving it…
This, my friends, is a crippling and intolerable burden.
The place where this intolerable burden is placed most eagerly upon others’ shoulders is at the graduation ceremonies of every self-respecting university. No grandiose ceremony is complete without the standard trope from the vice-chancellor: “Go out, make us proud, and change the world!” I myself have been the recipient of this plea — and at the time I did not detect the incredible amount of hubris contained within this burden. The world is immense, and its needs and unique contexts innumerable. It can be guaranteed that the 'education’ obtained over the course of three years of study has only scratched the surface of what is needed to even attempt to positively change a single region let alone the world. That is a severe knowledge deficiency; the scale mismatch is even starker. No individual can hope to change something which is so beyond his or her capacity — as fundamentally limited creatures we simply do not have the time, energy, or mental power to sometimes get out of bed in the morning let alone change the world. The intolerable and impossible nature of this burden may explain why some climate activists seem so hysterical and emotional. If they feel individually responsible for saving the planet and averting climate change, then the weight of this immense burden will cripple them mentally.9
I believe we were never made to have such global burdens on our shoulders. The world is not ours to save — and we can’t even if we tried with all our might.10 One in a million of us may make a world changing difference — finding a cure for cancer or discovering something as world-changing as electricity — but such men and women are few and far between. You, dear reader, are unlikely to be one of them and neither am I. The memory of most of us will be erased once the inscription on our tombstone has weathered away. But if that inscription told of a life faithfully lived towards God and man — a ripe life11 with duties faithfully discharged and accomplished, and a local area all the better for your presence — then all is as it should have been.
You are not responsible for the whole world — far from it. But you are responsible for the local places12 in front of you: the local people who you relate to, the unique buildings, art, and beauty that you enjoy every day, and the local environments and habitats that surround the place you dwell. Where you are is where you are — and what you are responsible for. This is a burden heavy enough for us. This is a burden that matches our limitations.13 This is a burden that we can faithfully discharge. And this is a burden that will present us with a lifetime of opportunities for doing good.
Some of our local actions will indeed have global ramifications for good and for bad — such is the nature of our tele-connected world. Pollutants spread, emissions add up, and buying locally and sustainable food means less demand for unsustainable food from elsewhere14. But we can be certain that all of our local actions will have a local effect. Buying from your local shop supports the livelihood of your local proprietor. Stewarding your local habitats helps to protect the specific creatures who live there. Campaigning to save the listed building helps preserve that which otherwise would be lost. If I don’t care for my local area who else will? There are millions of people looking to care for the globe, but few to care for the places that are right in front of them.
Local action, though, is often far from glamorous and won’t make you famous. What’s more, it is often beset with infuriating bureaucracy and setbacks, funding is always in short supply, and positive change can take a lifetime to become apparent. Coupled with the fact that the global advocates with their glaring adverts and slogans tell you day in day out that: “you are worth it”, “you can change the world”, “don’t waste your life on the small, insignificant, and the local” it can be very tempting to broaden our horizons and focus on the important issues of elsewhere. Chances are your neighbour is already doing so, and their neighbour too. There is always a shortage of local advocates, local workers, and rooted people — and there are never enough willing hands for the unglamorous work to be done. If this essay convinces you to be numbered among the willing hands, then I will count the hours invested into these words a success. “Be famous within 15 miles” a sage once said15. If more people took this to heart, the ground beneath our feet might just start to heal and our fractured and dilapidating communities might just start to revive.
“A couple who make a good marriage, and raise a healthy, morally competent children, are serving the world's future more directly and surely than any political leader, though they never utter a public word. A good farmer who is dealing with the problem of soil erosion on an acre of ground has a sound grasp of that problem and cares more about it and is probably doing more to solve it than any bureaucrat who is talking about it in general. A man who is willing to undertake the discipline and the difficulty of mending his own ways is worth more to the conservation movement than a hundred who are insisting merely that the government and the industries mend their ways.”16
The local is where we are present. It is the place we know and the place where we are known. We do indeed inhabit nations and the world, but these meta-places are made up of many puzzle pieces: some large, others small, but each a unique place — most of which we will never set foot in nor places we could ever know intimately well. The nation and the world are not therefore the places that we chiefly inhabit. No matter how hard the institutions try to tell you otherwise. And if these meta-places are not where we chiefly inhabit, they are not the places we are chiefly responsible for. Only our local place can impose those kind of demands on us. We are chiefly responsible for the health of the place upon which we stand — and must work as hard as a dam-building beaver to this end17. Only then can we make a national or global difference — when our own house is in order. And when we find our own house is in order, we come to realise that our little actions add up and thus change the world — both the little patch of ground which we call home and the globe of which it is inseparably part of.
I may not have changed the whole wide world, but if I have planted and nurtured a tree, I have changed the earth at my feet for good and better for the next generation. Perhaps that’s all I need to do.
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Further Reading
Wendell Berry, Think Little.
Wendell Berry, The Work of A Local Culture.
Paul Kingsnorth , Learning What To Make of It. (In Confessions of A Recovering Environmentalist) This brilliant essay was what triggered the thoughts for this essay, and I lean heavily on Paul’s ideas throughout.
Although one could make the case that neglected areas of this country, those places with few residents and advocates or acute and severe issues should be a high priority for us all. I need to think more on this.
But, don’t let this put you off visiting (as I say in the footnote below, its not all bad) and if you are passing through this part of the country do give me a shout and we can meet for a walk in the woods or sit and chat over a hot drink.
And which has now happened as I outline in my essay for The Dispatch: Practicing Rootedness in an Uprooted Age. Sedbergh is now my rooted home.
And its not all bad — we are close to some amazing habitats (salt marshes, bluebell woods, flood meadows) and I jokingly refer to Chelmsford as the land of eternal sunshine — it is one of the sunniest spots in the UK.
This doesn’t mean one always has to remain where one is. There are good reasons for moving: financial reasons, security reasons, health reasons. But in general, the rootlessness that characterises our modern world is detrimental.
Granted, national and global media is easier to consume and obtain than local media or information, which may only be accessible by word of mouth.
What I call the phenomenon of being preoccupied with two different places, one physically and one mentally/emotionally without really being fully present in either. e.g. I live here, but my heart and attention is elsewhere.
This is not to deny the importance and urgency of climate mitigation. But the scale of the problem is so immense, the political and technological lock-ins and path dependencies so intractable that despair and hysteria is all too easy to slip into if one is not careful.
There is one Man who has saved the world though — Jesus Christ.
See Wendell Berry, Quantity Versus Form for a beautiful description of a ripe life.
Undoubtedly some local residents have greater responsibility than others — but a healthy community is dependent on all members working together (even those with differing or even opposing views on what healthy community looks like/needs to include).
Paul Kingsnorth, Learning What To Make Of It.
But beware of environmental leakage.
Garry Snyder was his name.
Wendell Berry, Think Little.
I use this example as a beaver, like no other animal, works hard to create a convivial environment.
So much truth in this piece! Thanks Hadden for reminding us that , although local action is “far from glamorous and won’t make you famous”, it is where we are called to act. Also find it quite special that you live in a town that Dickens referred to as the "dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the earth". I wonder what experience he must have had there to come up with such a description....
Will save this piece to my library of important essays!
Wow, I resonate with this so much! One aspect that strikes me about the relative unimportance of news from from far away is its lack of accuracy. If you know your own area and culture and community really well, you know how inaccurate news about it can be! “Well they didn't mention this other thing,” and “it's actually so much more complicated than that,” and “well that wasn't very charitable” are always going through your mind. And to think how true that must be ablout other places!
When we think too big, we're liable to become distraught at the futility I think. We just can't change the world, but we can definitely change our home. And our homes are in such great need that we have no need to feel bad about focusing on it instead of some great evil far away.
I saved this post, and I think I'll return to it. So many helpful thoughts.