Why I blog, why I bowl

About a month ago a Hooptedoodle reader wrote to me and said that he had been riding his bike to work this winter because I do. The story goes that one particularly cold morning his wife saw him suiting up for a ride and asked him what he was doing.  After telling her he was riding to work and she asked why, he replied “Because Chad does it.”  Apparently I had inspired him to make a lifestyle change. 

Several months ago Sans Auto went to a lecture by Robert D. Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone: The collapse and Revival of American Community.  He blogged about it.  I checked Bowling Alone out from the library, thumbed through the pages, looked at the charts and read the captions. Then I decided not to read it.  It was too thick and I had got the message just from the back cover. 

Instead, I decided to use the time I could have spent reading it making new friends in a bowling league.  I recruited some guys from my office, found a league and signed us up.  As bowlers, we’re terrible, even though we have managed to win a few games.  More importantly, we’ve managed to develop friendships with some of the other bowlers in the league, most of whom are in very different social and economic classes than we are.  Sans Auto inspired me to join the league, to do something new. 

Those are just two examples of people being moved to make small choices to improve things for all of us.  It’s small but it is progress. Can it be bigger?  This is something I think about often.   How do we get more people to think about the consequences of the choices they make? 

I would love to see more people riding bikes to work.  I can think of dozens of reasons why people should do it.  Health, society, environment, enjoyment, the list is long.  But why don’t people listen?  How do we help people see they are hurting themselves and all of us by driving to work?  How do we help people see they are hurting society by living so far from their work, by not knowing their neighbor, by mistrusting people that look or act different, by buying things they don’t need? 

What moves you?