[This piece originally appeared on my Facebook page some 14 months ago, or a couple of eons back in social media time.]
Let’s give some respect to infrastructure.
If we ever hear this word, it’s usually in the context of large-scale funding for roads and bridges. But by its very nature, infrastructure is normally out of the spotlight, often not exposed to much light at all or given attention for years at a time. Infrastructure is every load-bearing wall in your house, every wire and pipe, every nail and setscrew, every seal and switch, every hinge, latch and lock. It’s all of those parts, manufactured in some other place, installed by someone you might have never met (and who may no longer be alive).
Infrastructure is, by design, highly functional while at the same time hidden from sight, or at least disguised as something less, well, utilitarian. Look at the photo above. What you are seeing are two cellular transmission towers that are camouflaged, more or less convincingly, as saguaro cacti.
It’s not only people who require infrastructure. A tree depends for its very life on suitable soil, reliable water, regular doses of sunlight, and perhaps a symbiotic relationship with some other life form, be it bird, insect or microbe. And of course, on air and gravity. Come to think of it, people rely on almost all of those things as well, including the microbes.
Now let’s zoom out. The infrastructure of a community is as important (and undercelebrated) as any other. Language and customs keep a community thriving, as do forms of commerce, law, and religious and other social institutions. Systems of public health and education literally assist a community (family, tribe, nation, etc.) in surviving from one generation to another.
But’s it’s not all technical. There is aesthetic infrastructure. Pictures on a wall, libraries, landscaping, architecture, and venues for entertainment (including sports) are all parts of the infrastructure which help a community define itself as distinct from others in the animal kingdom. Or, from that community on the other side of the hill.
And this brings me to a major point. People not only require infrastructure, but are part of it themselves. Public utilities are designed, operated, monitored and repaired by people. They do their job which we might not even think about when we flip a switch, change a channel, set an alarm, visit a website. There are people on the job for this at literally all hours, and on weekends, and on holidays, in inclement weather, during the big game, or when seemingly the whole world is taking a break. Someone somewhere is on the job, solving problems, or steering us all past the jagged rocks.
It’s tempting to make a value judgment, to say that we have not so much a dependence on our infrastructure as an addiction. We can live without many of these things because we have done so in the past: 40 years ago we had no internet, 400 years ago no electricity, 4000 years ago no paved roads, and so on. But that’s not the point. We provide these things for ourselves because we are an interdependent community, living “on the grid” because we ourselves are the structure of that grid. To shift a figure of speech, we are not just passengers on this voyage; we are all crew members.
You might feel that you are replaceable, that someone else could take over your job tomorrow. But look at it this way: more than likely your job is irreplaceable (or nearly so), and benefits the whole in a way that might not be celebrated, or well-rewarded, but would make a difference if it ceased to exist. We are not all George Bailey, who saved people’s lives; most of us instead are the scriptwriters, film developers and projectionists who made George Bailey come to life. We don’t always notice the thread, but everyone notices the hole. The thread is the substance that keeps itself together and is useful and valuable. The thread is us.
#infrastructure
