Making the effort

Connection and progress require commitment

Most people like to stretch beyond the demands of family and work to do the occasional good deed — running marathons to fight disease, serving at soup kitchens, and donating clothes and food to shelters.

We like the positive feelings that flow through us. It’s called the “helper’s high” — the physical reward for being kind. A study from China just released in December even found that helping others relieves chronic physical pain.

But this desire (or need) to do good collides with the ever-growing modern inclination to avoid commitment. Rampant individualism and the related reluctance to join a cause are reshaping our world — negatively.

As do-gooders, we’re in love with the one-off. It isn’t always enough. We talk a lot about sustainability, but are we practicing it in the areas that matter most?

The Post-Gazette ran a heartwarming story last week about a century-old bookstore in Hampshire, England, that tweeted a sad update on a day without a single sale. Well-known in antiquarian circles, Petersfield Bookshop already had 1,100 followers on Twitter.

But when science fiction writer Neil Gaiman (2.7 million followers) retweeted the bookstore’s dismal update, orders flooded in from all over the world. Its Twitter following doubled.

In one grateful post, the store’s clerk urged, “Please, go and find your local indie bookshops … and buy real books from them. If you don’t, they will just close and disappear.”

If I could, I’d insert one word at the end of his first sentence above: “Regularly.”

There are causes for which a onetime, standalone event is adequate. Bookshops aren’t among them. Neither are other independent commercial enterprises, churches and synagogues, service clubs, homeless shelters and so on. These require sustained commitment.

If my inclusion of businesses on that list surprises you, it’s because we can more easily discuss this problem on the fairly neutral ground of, say, books, as opposed to touchier areas like our respective religions and “causes.” But they’re all suffering. Why? An annual walk-for-whatever works well in the world of medicine, because the sustained, difficult work has to be done by skilled researchers. All the volunteers can do is show up once a year to raise money and encourage the doctors and patients. Once a year.

But for many undertakings, the oneoff has to grow into a habit; it needs to be once a month or once a week. We live in a world where “the good” requires continuous effort.

For me, real books are worth preserving. And is there anything greener than a used book from a local store?

The vast growth in online retail tracks closely with the decline of participation and commitment in American society. Both feed, I think, our disconnectedness from one another and our angsty national mood.

In “Bowling Alone,” political scientist Robert D. Putnam examined the decline of “social capital” as exhibited in waning participation in bowling leagues, social clubs, public meetings, etc. He connected it to the rise of new technologies, predicting the trend would continue. That was in 2000. He was right.

Commitment to institutions continues to decline. We prefer the one-off, the occasional GoFundMe campaign, the feel-good response to a celebrity writer’s tweet on a struggling bookstore.

But when we do a one-time thing, we are acknowledging an unmet inner need. We’re prodding ourselves to break out of isolated routines, to connect with neighbors and neighborhoods in pursuit of something good.

We just need to do it more, till shopping near home and donating money and attending a service or meeting every week become habits.

The Petersfield Bookshop tweet advocating for shopping at local establishments warned, “If you don’t, they will just close up and disappear. You won’t even notice to start with, and then you will. And it will be too late.”

Ditto for meal programs, food pantries and clothing drop-offs — and the churches and synagogues where such programs (logically) exist.

Once-in-a-while isn’t enough if we want to reconnect to the world around us, its people, pleasures and needs.