On Proximity to Place, with Sam Pressler

I was so happy to sit down with Sam Pressler in my hometown a couple weeks ago for an interview in his wonderful Connective Tissue. We were in one of my favorite cafes, surrounded by lush plant life, and coincidentally, many of my neighbors here in Lexington that I've known for awhile.

I am likely sometimes too candid with my thoughts on "the field". A lot of that candidness stems from an exasperation from the field not valuing proximity to place. So, I've tried to make myself an evangelist of sorts for proximity because I value it and know it intimately.

When you do the work in the place you're in, the stakes are higher than doing a good or bad job. When you are of the place, and your work's success or failure has tangible impacts on the people you care about and see every day, you are, in the end, more accountable in a very specific and personal way.

That's a hard emotion to abstractify and explain to someone.

So, I'm very grateful to Sam for asking a question that few ask those of us that work on our place:

"…when I think about the practical implications, being overly proximate, overly relational, and overly accountable feels like it could be overwhelming. It feels like it could be a reason someone wouldn't want to do the work anymore. Is there a way that you can have proximity and accountability without it completely burning you out?"

The short version of my answer is "no, but maybe that's ok".