Building a Beautiful City

I frequently mention the importance of social connectedness to wellbeing. Today, let’s explore how we can build a beautiful community to promote wellbeing.

Wellbeing in Community

Consider how your environment affects your mood and outlook. Beauty in the environment affects your mental health. If you are surrounded by the shells of bombed buildings, you will have an emotional response which may be different from your reaction to an environment of intact buildings. If you reside in a rat-infested neighbourhood or a cockroach-infested building, your mental state may be affected.

Life is not rainbows and unicorns. Yet, some of us clearly have not experienced degraded housing situations or have not resided in underserved neighbourhoods. Remember to try to place yourself in someone else’s shoes before you judge their reactions to words, situations, and opportunities. The environment may be affecting the responses of the other person.

Building a Beautiful Environment

Wanting to create a beautiful environment for the community is a start. Then, we have to take action. Executive functioning may allow us to modulate how much we invest in acting and actually creating the beautiful environment.

Different parts are our brain are responsible for wanting versus reflecting before following through with our desire to improve the environment or to destroy the environment.

Learning From the Literature on Extremism

You may be asking, what does extremism have to do with beautifying the environment in my community?

The literature about In-groups and extremism can inform our understanding of what it takes to beautify our communities. By feeling part of an in-group, feeling part of the larger group, people have a sense of belongingness. That sense of belongingness allows me to feel an alliance to the larger community. By social norms, that can influence my desire to commit crimes towards my community and my desire to make my community beautiful.

Two important mediating variables include social network (social capital) and a history of trauma.

Take a listen to the following video, particularly the section presented by Dr. Nafees Hamid in this video by the UN Innovation Network:

The Neuroscience of Peace and Conflict: June 15, 2023.

Radicalization in My Community

My opinion is that radicalization is tangible in the USA. People are polarized. Some people have become radicalized.

What if we all took the stance of welcoming everyone, embracing everyone regardless of political, religious, socioeconomic, and cultural differences? We would be investing in social capital by reaching people who would otherwise not feel a part of our social network.

Well, you say, but I cannot control for someone’s history of trauma. Very true. We can only control what we control. Very little is under my control.

But, my reaction to another human being is controllable. By embracing the other person, I control one variable: my reaction to the other person.

If we feel we belong to a group, our investment in the group is personal. Recall the physical and emotional feelings you have experienced when you deemed that you belonged to a group. The attachment to the group can lead to a desire to better the group’s environment and can deter destruction of the group’s environment.

Voilà. The neighbourhood is already on the path to improvement.

Building a Beautiful City

We can build a beautiful city. We have to believe we can. The alternative is what we have right now: monoliths believing in their superiority and failing to collaborate to make our world, our country, our communities beautiful.

Use your mirror neurons and smile at your neighbour. They might just smile back, as expected based on neuroscience.

Take a moment to listen to music for inspiration.

Hunter Parrish performing “Beautiful City” from Godspell:

Telly Leung, Lindsay Mendez, and Wallace Smith performing “Learn Your Lessons Well” from Godspell:

Take-aways: Building a Beautiful City and MLK Jr

Let me end with a favourite quote by Martin Luther King Jr, especially since we are now in Black History Month:

“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/566501-cowardice-asks-the-question-is-it-safe-expediency-asks-the

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream for our country. He shared that dream with us. Can we honour his memory and his legacy by realizing his dream? Isn’t it about time?

Be safe. Be kind. Take care.

Disclaimer: This post is not meant to substitute for a consultation with your mental health care team.

If you are having thoughts to hurt yourself or to hurt someone else, please call 9-1-1; call 9-8-8; or go to the nearest emergency room.

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