In the late 19th century Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, put forward an idea that society can be compared to a biological organism and coined the term “social organism”. A fitting comparison, seeing how every institution performs its own specific function, all of which are equally vital for the well-being of the organism – the economy provides and regulates the elements necessary for every individual and institution to function properly - just like the circulatory system of a mammal pumps vitae into every part of the body, the military institutions perform functions similar to those performed by the skin, law enforcement – to the immune system, etc.
In that respect, every function is intertwined with and connected to each other, and, in order for the whole “organism” to function in the most productive way possible, every part must perform its function flawlessly. So, in a way, every issue of an individual inside the system impacts all of it – every person’s actions influence society, in both negative and positive ways, depending on the nature of actions. Like a notorious butterfly flapping its wings and unknowingly causing storms in parts of the world it won’t even live to see, our conduct and behavior affect the lives of people around us in ways we cannot even imagine.
It’s quite difficult to pick a specific issue in my personal life: there seem to be so many of them these days. I’ll probably go with a problem familiar to all of us, which I’ve been battling for what seems to be my whole life – procrastination. I just can’t seem to be able to make myself sit down and do some good work. Because of it, many aspects of my life suffer. This reflects badly on my studies, my work, my personal relationships even, which, in turn, brings down the use of me as a “cell” in the “social organism”. While this probably will not get me kicked out of the university, this will affect the end result of the studies, making me a less productive worker, making the institution that I work for less functional, and ultimately affecting the society as a whole.
I hope I come up with something soon. But not know. There’s tons of time, I can relax and watch some YouTube videos. Some things are hard to remember now, and the experience of being in the kindergarten is certainly one of them. But some things are indeed unforgettable.
I remember us finding a family of hedgehogs. They were discovered in the grass near the fence during our time outside by a girl with hair unusually long for a child her age who never wore dresses, only shorts, whose name I cannot recall. A large group of children gathered around the animals, which were probably scared to death, especially seeing how it was a female hedgehog with small hedgehog-children (what do you even call them? Note to self: look up the proper name for baby-hedgehogs). Soon the overseer, a woman in her fifties, a real professional, came upon us. She quickly organized us into a rescue party – some were sent for a basket (there were some in a storage room), some – for gloves, some were left to guard the hedgehogs. After everything was assembled, they were caught, carefully put into baskets, carried out of the premises and let out.
I think a lot of things which carried over into my school life were learned that day – the value of team work under professional leadership, kind attitude to those weaker than you, the fact that hedgehogs can bite really hard. But probably the most important thing for me was probably the feeling of satisfaction I experienced seeing the animals run away – admittedly, less so from the fact that we helped some hedgehogs, but more so from the realization that we’ve done something meaningful, that the effort we, myself included, meant something.
There were many other things, of course – different activities specifically designed by professionals in the field of education to prepare us for school life: classes to teach us patience, basic skills such reading and writing, to make us more organized and responsible. But for some reason, when I go down the memory lane, the hedgehog experience seems to matter the most. Maybe it has to do with the spontaneous nature of the event, with the fact that it didn’t feel designed by someone else, the fact that it was natural. So there’s something else very important that I carried over to my school life and beyond – the value of spontaneous and unplanned experiences. They just shine brighter than anything else.
