this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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Betterment and Praxis
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The community for cool things you've done out in the real world, or are doing in the real world!
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I agree with @UrLogicFails, local offices are incredibly important positions. A city council can affect so many facets of citizens' lives, for better or worse, and a decisive vote for reducing insitutionalized harms is a huge thing to bring to the table. If you've got the bandwidth and inclination, go for it. Even the running for a position can be a platform to bring about social change, however small it seems.
It's something that I've considered, but we're recent enough residents in a state with an insular culture (Maine - I'll tell you the "joke" I was told by a townie shortly after moving here if you want) and trying to bootstrap a business so it's tough to place any resources towards it currently. It'll certainly be revisited if circumstances make it an option, though.
"A couple bought a house in Maine and a few weeks later their son was born at (hospital in New Hampshire). He grew up in that house, played little league, went to school and work in Maine. Lived here his whole life and when he died his tombstone read 'he was almost one of us'"
It's a real knee slapper. My diction is still nonregional enough that picking me out as a flatlander is easy, but I get on well enough with some of the older generational farmers in the area at least. Still, in a town of <5k it's tough to be "from away" and be perceived as working to build with your community instead of some kind of carpetbagger trying to change folks' way of life.