I guess writing about the miserable things in life is, in fact, what I will be doing from now on. There’s just so much to say, even if it has all been said before by better writers than me.

When you look around the place you call home, how does it make you feel? Are there things that you love? There must be. Every place, however shitty it might be, has some redeeming qualities. Maybe they’re small. The food scene sucks, but the bakery makes the best pasticciotti you can get anywhere near here. Most of the bars are dives filled with angry, dejected boomers who still think they’re going to suddenly become billionaires at the ripe young age of 59 after nearly four decades of working in the Walmart Warehouse and taking out their anger on their families, buuuuuut that one bar has the most obscure and delicious assortment of craft beers you’ve ever seen in one place. Whatever that thing/those things are, you should acknowledge them and appreciate them as often as possible. They make life worth living, wherever you’re living it.

That being said, if there were just a couple more restaurants downtown near the theater, if there were just a few more sidewalks weaving everything together, if there was just literally any cycling infrastructure at all, maybe your town wouldn’t feel like a fucking drag with a couple beacons of hope spread far and few between. Maybe it would be a wonderful place to live. A place that you would like to spend the rest of your life, maybe open your own business, maybe just a place that doesn’t make you feel like you are wasting your small amount of time on this Earth in a place that will never be anything like the place you’d like to live. Who’s going to do something about it? How can you do something about it? Can you even do anything about it?

I’m not sure. Let me be more clear: you definitely can do something about it. Maybe it won’t be just you, but if your city or town is small enough, it could very well be just you and a couple other like-minded individuals. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a city council meeting, but if you haven’t, you should. They’re terrible. They’re boring, they’re sometimes purposely confusing, and most of the people who will be there are probably going to be decades older than you and not have any of the same ideals or concerns in mind. That’s one of the many reasons why you should go to one. One of the reasons things aren’t changing in the way you’d like is, very likely, because no one who wants the changes you want is voicing those opinions. The opinions that are heard are the only ones that will be considered.

Which brings me to the other main reason you should go to one of these meetings: it is astounding how so many huge decisions are made by such a small group of loud people. If an issue being discussed at one of these meetings is going to benefit 90% of your town’s population in a small way, and is going to negatively affect 10% of the population in a big way, that 10% of people is going to show up to the meeting where this issue is being decided on. They’re going to cause a stink, they’re going to be relentless about it, and they’re likely going to get their way, because they’re going to be the only people there to contribute to the discussion. Most people won’t go out of their way to vocally support something in a public forum that is going to make their lives marginally better.

But that is the problem. Things don’t get better quickly, in huge jumps. They get better slowly, through lots of small, incremental changes, towards a larger goal. The status quo is easy to defend, and a lot of people are susceptible to the idea that things are the way they are and that is how they ought to stay. But that is fucking stupid, and you know that. They do too, or at least they probably did at one point, when something they cared about needed changing.

It is so exhausting to do anything at this point. Life is hard, everything is too expensive, and just doing the normal day-to-day things can feel overwhelming a lot of the time. Nobody wants to take time out of their very small amount of free time to go speak at a city council meeting. But you, and a like-minded group of people that you can gather or join, need to do that. Things don’t change if no one asks for the changes. Figure out what you wish your community was like today, and start pushing the people in charge to make it like that by the time you’re dead. You might not get to see all the benefits, but someone will, and for better or worse, that is the best we can ask for.