Brrrrr… here we go again, turning to the coziness of our homes as the season changes. For me, as a new empty nester, my experience at home is also changing. It feels very familiar, yet a little strange, and I’m thinking about the essence of what home means.
Home is not always a cozy place. In fact, we know that feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and hopeless is common in our communities, among our loved ones, and in our homes. Researchers have reported that high levels of stress and anxiety are prevalent today, with some measures near 2020 pandemic and 2008 Great Recession levels. I hear this from people across my personal and professional worlds.
The good news is that people also report that they are willing to hear a different perspective and are open to learning about the “other side” of an issue. We also know that it is connections with people different from us that reduces polarization, fuels collaboration, and increases hope.
We will be exploring many perspectives and showcasing bright innovations, as we explore together the big idea of Finding Home. We know that the sense of home is timeless and fluid. People innately seek the peace, safety, and comfort that we associate with home. Yet we also know we face difficult challenges, such as access to housing, a fractured sense of cultural belonging, and intense battles over immigration. To address these, we have to establish common ground and invite collaboration.
Over the next year, as we approach the 250th anniversary of the signing of Declaration of Independence, the Academy is partnering with community groups around the state to explore the ways we are Finding Home in Wisconsin. The Academy has a long history of holding conversations that invite complexity, sharing stories from varied perspectives, and bringing people together using the lenses of the arts, sciences, and letters to better understand the world we share, and those in it.
This is particularly essential right now, as we create the place that we call home, a Wisconsin that we can be proud of and that is home for us all.
