Interlude: Next Changes

I'm still reading my biology book but I'm not sure whether I'll continue this series, or when I will if I do.

Several things have been happening. The first is that I kept a copy of all the posts that I've written on a flashdrive that I kept in my pocket. Some of it was backed up, but there was much of it that wasn't. Then one day the flashdrive was missing. I still haven't found it and that's put a crimp in my desires to write lots of posts.

More importantly, about halfway through this first year of my latest community venture, I realized that it wasn't working. I'm not happy about this but I don't think that continuing on, as is, makes sense. Neither does starting over. I've done this several times and it hasn't worked. There comes a point where I need to pay attention and decide that it's time to go in a different direction.

In essence, instead of trying to create community (at least for now) I'm looking at trying to join an already functioning community. Part of the reason is to learn from what's working (as well as to perhaps help a community or two work even better) and part of it is to look for others with experience living in community. I will not (and this is a promise to myself) try again to start building a community alone or only with people who haven't done it before. I need to have others with experience to do this with--and, I think the way to find others with experience is to get active in the communities movement.

Unfortunately, this is a challenge, as I'm now sixty and starting over, especially since it will involve traveling and some short term community situations (a year or two, is what I'm thinking). It may involve more than one situation before I find the folks I'm looking for. This isn't exciting and it is risky, but I don't have any better ideas.

What I want to do is to build or live in community in New England, but the kind of community I want (simple, sustainable, communal, and egalitarian) doesn't exist here. What it looks like I'll be doing is leaving New England, hopefully not for too long and not going too, too far.

Meanwhile, my next post will be on what I see as one of the most hopeful developments in building this kind of community: communities of communities.


Quote of the Day: “Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.” - Simone de Beauvoir