Bowling Alone

Have you ever read an absolutely amazing story by Cliff Notes, then felt inspired to read the full length 600 page version only to find the story's potency diluted by all the boring details and your short attention span? We all have. I just read an amazing, but not very readable book, called Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Harvard Professor of Public Policy Robert D. Putnam. The story is powerful but the book was painful. And for the reason above, I don't recommend it-- just finish reading this blog post. So let me try to curdle out the gist, warp the context, and then make it apply whatever I felt like applying to my life these days.

Bowling is the number one sport in which Americans participate. But people don't join bowling leagues like they used to. Instead, they bowl alone. And they save cash by not buying beer and pizza. They're in; they're out. And it is precisely the beer and pizza sales that keeps the bowling alley in business. So, bowling alleys are forced to close down and thus, fewer people will be joining bowling leagues...and believe it or not, societal team morale weakens.

Since the 1960's, participation in community life in America has been tanking! With a few exceptions, most community activities and organizations, formal and informal, follow a harrowing trend that looks like this:

It's hard to read the graphs but the point is they mostly trend downward when the book was written.

Putnam argues convincingly that the social ties established, from Euchre clubs and PTA meetings to bowling leagues and wine tastings, is essential to America's sense of reciprocity, trust, optimism, democracy, equality, and even physical health. The networks of relationships formed are both bonding and bridging-- essential to democracy's proverbial glue and WD-40.

I've tended to resonate with Putnam's chapters related to health and well-being. Consider the following excerpts:

"The single most common finding from a half century's research on the correlates of life satisfaction, not only in the United States but around the world, is that happiness is best predicted by the breath and depth of one's social connections."

"In study after study people themselves report that good relationships with family members, fiends, or romantic partners-- fare more than money or fame-- are prerequisites for their happiness."

"Dozens of painstaking studies from Alameda (California) to Tecumseh (Michigan) have established beyond resonable doubt that social connectedness is one of the most powerful determinants of our well-being. The more integraded we are with our community, the less likely we are to experience colds, heart attackes, strokes, cancer, depression, and premature death of all sorts."


"The positive contributions to health made by social integration and social support rival in strength the detrimental contributions of well-established biomedical risk factors like cigarette smoking, obesity, elevated blood pressure, and physical inactivity."


"People who are socially disconnected are between two and five times more likelly to die from all causes, compared with matched individuals who have close ties with family, friends, and community."


"By many objective measures, including life expectancy, Americans are healthier than ever before, but these self-reports indicate that we are feeling worse. These self-reports are in turn closely linked to social connectedness, in the sense that it is precisely less connected Americans who are feeling worse."


"Generally speaking, as one rises up the income hierarchy, life contentment increases. So money can buy happiness after all. But not as much as marriage...In round numbers, getting married is the 'happiness equivalent' of quadrupling your annual income... Four additional years of education-- attending college for example-- is the 'happiness equivalent' of roughly doubling your annual income...Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or church attendance is the happiness equivalent of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income. Civic connections rival marriage and affluence as predictors of life happiness."


"If one wanted to improve one's health, moving to a high-social capital state would do almost as much good as quitting smoking."

Some days, we wake up with tremendous drive to save the planet, raise a family, or close a deal. Other days we feel crippled, solitary, and weak. I know I can't save the planet. But Putnam has really helped convinced me that we can bowl our butts off as if we're saving a country and that's almost as important.

Now, bowling is not my sport, but I feel like I've bridged and bonded over the years with more people than previous years by taking up cycling and triathlon-- one sport whose participation levels are rapidly rising.

The most efficient form of transportation on planet Earth (and an awesome rush) is a cycling peleton, especially with big black dudes...except when it's lost.

Riding the mountains of Townsend, TN in the spring with the Major Taylors cycling club. Major Taylor was the first African-American world champion (cyclist). There are Major Taylor cycling clubs all across America. You don't have to be black, but white people don't look as good in jazzy colors.

Putnam tells a cool story that I'm just going to cut and paste right out of his book to conclude:
Before October 29, 1997, John Lambert and Andy Boschma knew each other only through their local bowling league at the Ypsi-Arbor Lanes in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Lambert, a sixty-four-year-old retired employee of the University of Michigan hospital, had been on a kidney transplant waiting list for three years when Boschma, a thirty-three-year-old accountant, learned casually of Lambert's need and unexpectedly approached him to offer to donate one of his own kidneys. "Andy saw something in me that others didn't", said Lambert. "When we were in the hospital Andy said to me, 'John, I really like you and have a lot respect for you. I wouldn't hesitate to do this all over again.' I got choked up." Boschma returned the feeling: "I obviously feel a kinship [with Lambert]. I cared about him before, but now I'm really rooting for him." This moving story speaks for itself, but the photograph that accompanied this report in the Ann Arbor News reveals that in addition to their differences in profession and generation, Boschma is white and Lambert is African-American. That they bowled together made all the difference. In small ways like this-- and in largerways, too-- we Amercians need to reconnect with one another. That is the simple argument of this book.