Community
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May 17th, 2022
When I first moved back to Salt Lake I was pretty meh about it. I remember feeling like the city was sorta dead and that the (sub)urban sprawl presented a barrier in creating relationships. Like, even though all my friends lived in “Salt Lake City”, we still lived a 15-minute drive from one another. Also… the smog in the winter and the sans-water heat in the summertime.
All in all, for most of my first year here I was pretty critical of Salt Lake.
Which is comical to look back on because of how much I love it here now. It would be easy to attribute my love of Salt Lake to the sunny weather, the access to the desert, the ridiculous springtime vibes, and the beautiful contrast of city/mountain but, if I’m honest, the deepest and truest reason for my love of Salt Lake comes down to one thing: the homies.
The people.
Community.
That’s what makes it. Period.
True, the geography and culture are the attractors for the people but, nonetheless, it is the humans that make Salt Lake so cool. And wow do we have a cool crew of humans down here. Cool, of course, being subjective where I am the subject who gets to define what cool means.
So what is it that makes my friends so cool?
My friends are cool because:
We are open and receptive to life.
We don’t give a fuck (in the best sense of the phrase).
We seek growth in ourselves.
We facilitate growth in those around us.
We are kind. And all are welcome.
It is these virtues that make us so cool, and it is this unspoken code that seems to be the uniting force that bonds us together… for now.
I say “for now” because god-only-knows what the future holds, and if experience means anything, it’s that everything is impermanent, even and especially friendships. I have friends from chapters of my life who I couldn’t have fathomed falling out of touch with, and yet, here I am with 10+ years of no communication.
My friends right now, however, feel different. The roots of our friendship seem deeper, more long-lasting, more durable. Our anchoring force is not that we’re on the same soccer team, or that we have classes together, or that we’re ski buddies– all of which are situational and fleeting. The core of our community are the primal virtues I mentioned above– kindness, growth, and openness to life. All of which I feel are fundamental to being human and I hope to carry with me throughout my life.
There will be a time that I stop playing soccer and thus stop connecting with my soccer homies, and there will be a time that I stop skiing thus stop connecting with ski homies, but I do not foresee a time when I stop valuing kindness, growth, and openness to life.
I see that this is a chapter we are in, and our crew will certainly split at some point. But when we reconnect, whenever that may be, I’m certain we will have grounds to connect on. I’m certain the vibe will persist.
Because we are anchored by the primal. Bonded by our shared humanity.
And that ain’t changin.
(Fuck! I love my friends)
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