Cheers!

Typically when working on repetitious, mundane tasks, I find random songs popping into my head and then running over and over again. (Thanks to a friend on Facebook, a recent song was "Baby monkey, riding backwards on a pig, baby monkey". But that's another story.)

During a recent mundane task, the Cheers theme song was running through my head all day. I believed this stemmed from my brother spending quite a bit of time in my small town lately. Coming from a large city, he is rather flabbergasted by customs of the residents of my small town. People stop by on the sidewalk and talk to us about random things. One of his favorite phrases while here is, "Dude, what is up with the people in this town?"

And this is where the Cheers theme song came in. The song says, "sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name". Another line says, "you want to go where people know, people are all the same". And I guess I have to wonder if that is true. Because recent conversations I have had with many people would imply that they would prefer just the opposite. They don't want everyone to know their name. And they definitely don't want people to be all the same.

I have been accused of being old-fashioned before, boring in fact. And many times I feel like I was born several decades too late. I mean, yes, I can see why anonymity has some appeal because then you never have to feel uncomfortable being vulnerable around other people.

But what's to say that feeling uncomfortable with being vulnerable isn't just another part of life that we have to get used to. Over time, it would seem less awkward I think. And I think the song is true. I think maybe there is a part in everyone's heart that wants to be known by name to other people. I think that most people want to feel like they are understood by others.

And I believe that the heart of a small town can be found anywhere, just by choosing to set anonymity aside and introduce yourself by name. By letting someone know that your struggles or joys or whatever are the same. And maybe the song is just repetitious because it's that simple and that true.