Bowling Alone and Cycling

Concordia Seminary hosted the annual Dellinger Lecture last night, this year the speaker was Harvard Professor Dr. Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone. This was an interesting, at times funny and at times frightening lecture about the loss of community in America and its consequences. As a sociologist, Putnam had lots of statistics about lots of things. One surprising conclusion was that the more groups you belong to, the more friends you have, generally the more you hang out with other people, the longer you will live. In fact, a person living an isolated life apparently has the same chance of dying in the next 12 months as a lifetime smoker. In contrast, those with a large network of friends live longer. By quite a bit, he said. So, the obvious conclusion (not his, but mine) is that if you cycling, that's good for you. But if you cycle with others, then you'll live a lot longer. So hop on the bike! Join in on the rides! Meet someone new!