 Regular
readers know that I'm infatuated with the idea of Intentional
Community, and that I believe the only way we're going to make major
positive changes to our unsustainable culture is by creating 'working
models' of a better way to live and make a living.
An
Intentional Community is a group of people with shared values and
shared purpose who agree to live together to further those values and
realize that purpose. Around the world there are hundreds of ICs, but
the large majority of them are very small (smaller than the average
struggling-nation family) or very short-lived. For awhile I doubted
that ICs had enough urgency and commitment to compel most members to
stick them out when times got tough or disagreements arose. Joe
Bageant's son's argument that 'communities are born of necessity' is
pretty compelling. And in Second Life the turnover in 'communities' is
enormous -- many people change their 'home' as often as they change
their clothes.
But while 'accidental communities' may outlast
intentional ones, the evidence is that most of them are not happy
places -- nor are they sustainable in a modern world quickly running
out of room, resources, and the essentials of life. We've left
community formation up to accident, and we got what we deserved --
greedy real estate developers telling us where we can and cannot live,
turning the Earth into unnatural wasteland.
My study of indigenous, 'tribal' communities suggests that, while they are sustainable (at least they were until
our civilization encroached irrevocably and dramatically into their
habitat), they are not necessarily happy places, especially for
non-conformists and especially when they abut other such communities
(this seems to trigger an endless cycle of inter-tribal violence).
I
have a perhaps idealistic view of the communities of wild creatures,
which are not nearly as violent as the makers of sensationalist nature
films would have us believe. From my studies of birds in particular,
I've learned that life for other creatures in the wild is mostly
joyful, peaceful and care-free. I've also learned that Gaia, the
complex self-regulating system of all-life-on-Earth, is graceful,
respectful, honourable, and astonishing.
If all-life-on-Earth can figure out how to live as responsible, sustainable, joyful and mostly peaceful life, what's wrong with us?
Are we really a rogue species, unable to fit into the ecosystem that
has evolved so effectively for millions of years? Or are we just going
about the business of belonging to Earth all wrong, and, if so, what do
we need to learn (or unlearn) and show to get us back on the right
track?
My fall-back, if I cannot find a way to join with others to be a model in community, is Radical Simplicity, a model of a personal way of living devoted to:
- leaving the Earth as we found it, unhampered in its ability to sustain itself indefinitely
- consuming as little of the Earth's resources as we need to be fully ourselves
- measuring
our 'success' not by material wealth or GDP but by the quality of our
lives ('our' meaning that of all creatures we share our ecosystems
with) -- health, well-being, happiness, learning, love
- relearning to listen to the Earth, to pay attention, and to live in harmony as a part of it
Perhaps
because I've lived a prosperous, materially comfortable life, yet not
found in it the happiness or health or well-being that I have always
intuitively sought, it is easy for me to shrug off material measures of
success. I can appreciate how those who have struggled for basic
necessities all their lives would find my quest elitist, disconnected
from the reality of the modern human condition. What good is a model of
a better way to live if 90% of the people on this horrifically
overpopulated planet will be completely unpersuaded of its value, even
if they could afford to emulate it?
Yet I can't shake my fascination with the idea of Intentional Community. In theory it still makes sense. For the same reason, I'm also still fascinated with the idea of
polyamorism, the idea that we're not meant to love or be loved by just
one person, and that monogamy demands so much of us that we end up
losing ourselves to compromise, or fracturing. I hear the two common
objections to polyamorism: That it's a self-indulgent and absurdly
unrealizable fantasy of middle-aged males. And that it's fearful, an
attempt to insulate ourselves against the loss of love, against
commitment, against responsibility, against being hurt. Maybe so.
(listening to House in the background -- a woman says to her new lover, one of the House doctors, after he indulges her: "I need you to do what you want. I can take care of me...I need you to take care of you.")
All
of this internal debate inside my own head is, perhaps, the crux of the
problem. I need to learn to let go, not to be afraid to be truly human,
truly myself, to live in the real world. Not to be afraid of intimacy
or responsibility. To be fearless. To try not to try too hard.
I need to think. I'm such a slow learner.
Or maybe I think too much. Maybe what I'm lacking is data. Maybe I spend too much time thinking and not enough time being. Before I can decide where I belong, perhaps I have to try belonging somewhere outside my own head.
Or
maybe I should lock myself in a lab and learn biology and invent some
dust that, spread from above the Earth, could halve the probability of
women everywhere becoming pregnant. Or invent a meat, tasty as the
finest on the planet, that could be grown in a test tube, in anyone's
garden, and spare the world's creatures the outrage and misery of
factory farms, and the horror of famine and hunger.
If not Intentional Community, then what?
I
have no idea. I know it's not political or social reform, or 'free'
markets, or new technology, or revolution, or spiritualism. We've tried
all these things for ten thousand years, and they've only made matters
worse. And I know that there is no going back, that there are no noble
savages, that history has many lessons but no better models of how to
live.
When I know myself a little better, when I know who I
really am and start to have an inkling where I might belong, maybe I'll
have some answers, some possibilities that make more sense. If so,
you'll be the first to know.
Image: Erskine Falls, Australia, photo from my Picasaweb collection
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10:33:57 PM 
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
