I do very little to be involved in my current local community. It’s as if my local involvement genes were burnt out when my last position as a practicing anthropologist ended due to a government reduction in force. As an anthropologist, I did as much as possible to throw myself into the life of the community I worked in by creating educational and cultural programs and writing on them. It was more than a way of earning a living; it was a professional calling. I still feel some pangs of loss when I think of it.
Unfortunately, when my last job in the field ended, I had to shift gears for new career opportunities rapidly. I had to reinvent myself, and that reinvention had little room for my former fifteen-and-a-half-year-long career.
So I reside in a municipality but have little connection to it other than as a residence.
3 Replies to “Pangs”
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Same with me. Not so much due to a career change as to moving to a new town just as the pandemic hit and being focused more on the well-being of my family and me than on the welfare of my local community.
I read your post, and I think getting involved is harder at our ages unless something there is going on that we are strongly attracted to going on in the community. Covid definitely had a big part in changing things for many of us.
You’re right