From Chaos and Loneliness to Effective Community
They’re completely violent, out of touch with their own needs, afraid of being used and mistreated, unable to ask for what they want, unable to recognize when they do get what they want, And in many ways far worse than the wild beasts. This isn’t their fault. They come from a situation where most of the rules were provided in childhood. Even those who claim to been raised in a very open manner will have been socialized with violence the point that most of their natural feelings and instincts have been completely suppressed. Some mistakingly feel that they have been raised in an open manner, however, had they truly been raised in an open free manner in this society, there is little chance they would have reached adulthood. At the very least, they would’ve been incarcerated. There is almost no way to grow up in an atmosphere of violence without having it permeate us deeply. During young adulthood, they try to find themselves, but without any fundamental understanding of their feelings and needs, they wander strange paths and are often lost. Like the Amish children were encouraged to rumspringa when they become adults, they err on the side of too much, thinking that their needs will now be met through crazy behavior, but having no guide to a happy way. This false dichotomy obscures true freedom. Thus “straight is the gate and narrow is the way the leads to life, and few there be that find it.” Attempting a relationship with someone who has no relationship with themselves is a very difficult endeavor. Compounding the issue is a lack of support which existed somewhat in previous generations through the local community or through family who lived close by. And, with our societal “don’t ask don’t tell” policy of hiding our weaknesses and failures from others, it is even more difficult. Because we are taught that the world is fundamentally competitive, we will hide our weaknesses in order to appear more powerful and procure survival resources. We have been trained in “survival of the fittest” and told that those who wish to get ahead must be better than other people. All this makes healthy relationships virtually impossible. And this is to say nothing of relationship duress, lack of healthy relating examples, and lack of positive encouragement. If we achieved our true power, we would pay no obeisance either to our political leaders, or to the “priests” who run society, be they actual religious leaders, or their proxies today: the medical establishment of psychologists and psychiatrists. Our cues of what is healthy and normal are taught by those to control the mental health establishments, organizations created to control and direct human behavior. And they are strongly influenced by financial interests, such as the pharmaceutical industry. These powers have an interest in the functioning of society (to profit from), but not in the individual power and creativity of the members thereof. This means of the information we receive about relating, connecting to our true power and inner authority, and our real authenticity is obfuscated in just about every way one can imagine. This dominant culture surrounds us, like water does fish. It takes almost a miracle for someone to discover the truth of relating, connection, and happiness in this environment. So what is the solution? The solution is to create a space of positive relating and healthy community, where support is provided to the “poor misled” above and beyond the nuclear family (an invention dating only back to the early 20th-century). The typical mother and father+children household (even worse, a single mother or single father household) has an unnatural lack of redundance. This is even more pronounced when there are children. If one of the two partners becomes incapacitated , a full 50% of the energy that was available to procure survival resources and support children is lost. In single-parent households, a loss of the parent would result in a 100% loss of survival and child-rearing resources. In the current societal structures, based on the hamster wheel of ever increasing responsibility and heavy debt of financial obligations, this structure is unsustainable. It is true that the state can step in to help alleviate some of the financial burden, however there is little sensitivity available in the state to care for the complex emotional, spiritual, and creative needs of those in the family. Why have we created such fragile structures for the most important missions of our species: creating happiness for all family members and fostering and environment for the successful upbringing of children? Especially when we understand how to create triply-redundant systems for airplanes that fly over oceans and continents? It makes no logical sense except as a control mechanism. Therefore, the only solution is to create a more redundant system of energetic support, more than the simple nuclear family. After breakup of the extended family and the local community due to “moving where the work is” and destruction of ‘mutual support societies’, general disillusionment with spiritual systems provided the deathblow to any support the family had beyond its nuclear structure. Every community, every tribe must have its rules and regulations. It must have a way that it functions and maintains order and unity in the group, as well as supporting the members in the group in getting their needs met. The state is simply too large and unwieldy a structure for doing this in any meaningful fashion. Therefore it remains for each person to decide to foster, create, support, and benefit from a central tribe or community that he or she chooses, fitting his or her values for the successful redundant support of meeting his or her own needs and those for whom he or she is responsible. Due to the fact that humans have identical needs, it should be possible to create an unlimited number of tribes that can have their own specific rules and systems to support like-minded individuals in meeting these needs. In addition, these tribes should be able to support children more effectively by providing a multitude of models of successful behavior in the world, as well as redundant systems of procuring resources, ensuring protection and survival, education, outlets for creativity, and the fulfilling of all other human needs The many abortive attempts and false starts in this direction only provide meaningful information to how to successfully create the tribe or community that does this.  |
