Staying Social -- Who is in your "karass?"

Talked to my good friend Dora Ann yesterday.  We spent ninety minutes on the phone – something that’s not all that unusual for us.

I’ve known Dora Ann since 1983.  We were both in Detroit at the time – she was one of my clients when I was writing, developing and programming interactive videodisc training programs.  (Ancient technology now, but back then it was “bleeding edge.”)  Since then, our lives have spun around in parallel and in sequence with each other.  When I went to work at the Saturn Corporation (you remember, “A different kind of car, a different kind of car company…”), Dora Ann was the first person I hired.  When I moved to Tennessee with Saturn in 1991, she stayed in Detroit.  But when I left Saturn for Saab and Sweden in 1998, she moved to Tennessee to take my job.  When I left GM in 2004 to start my own consultancy, she did the same…back in Detroit.

In his book "Cat's Cradle," Kurt Vonnegut created a term – “karass” – that describes a group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident.  Dora Ann and I have long-since decided that I am a member of her karass and she is a member of mine.  Our individual karasses intersect, but are not congruent.  Ours is an unlikely friendship:  she grew up in Hispanic, Catholic, East Los Angeles, surrounded by concrete and smog.  Not exactly in the barrio, but within a stone’s throw.  I am from the corn-fed plains of northern Indiana, where Presbyterians abide and where it’s so flat you can watch your dog run away for three days. 

She is far and away one of the smartest people I know.

When we talk now, it is the conversation of lifelong friends.  We talk about deep secrets swimming within us.  We talk about what it’s like to not be the “thirty-somethings” we were when we met.  Our phone call yesterday centered on what we’re going to do with the final third of our respective lives, what things are important, what things are worth chasing from our youth and what things are best left to our personal histories.

We agreed yesterday that family is very important as we age.  But we also recognized that “family” might not take the form of the Norman Rockwell gatherings that used to grace the covers of the Saturday Evening Post.  We are both a long way from home – a distance that has seemingly intensified as we get older.  This means that “family” will likely take the form of a social network derived from a neighborhood, a faith community, an activity community…or some other group of like-minded individuals.  Our blood relatives are ensconced in places to which we’re not likely to return. 

In other words, each of us has come to depend on our corresponding “karass.”  In an increasingly mobile society, this re-integration into a new “family” is an ongoing challenge.  Faith communities, hobby communities, arts communities, educational communities – each can be a rich source for connecting with other people.  This social context is something that the experts on retirement and aging agree is critically important for a full, healthy productive final third of one’s life.  But it is a challenge – finding the appropriate chemistry with new people, especially as we age – is a sometimes daunting prospect.

So – as Vonnegut himself might have stated – the question becomes:  who is in your “karass?”  And how will you add to it as you enter that last, fruitful third of your life?