STORIES FROM A 'thrown away' LIFE

I LIVED 17 YEARS IN THREE COMMUNES---All of which I started.  Two were in New Orleans one in Tampa, Florida.

It was a pivotal experience that awakened me on many fronts.  I love living communally---entangling my life with a dozen or so people.  After 5 years of near-bliss I fell out of agreement with the group---suffered hugely---raged internally.  Finally I went off to San Francisco and took the EST training and began to take responsibility for whatever came into my life.  I eventually got a new vision---bought a fire damaged mansion--and started another commune---this one structured with a new system based partly on an insight from Buckminster Fuller: ---the critical distinction between MORAL and TECHNICAL solutions to human problems. (e.g. the problem of speeding cars where children play.  The moral approach is a warning sign---the technical approach is speed bumps---engineering situations rather than engineering people)

The next 5 years were truly blissful.  I found the right people--and together we created what I think is the "perfect" communal system.  (beginning with Andy--who sometimes comments on this blog)
I renovated the house as we occupied it and soon it was valuable enough to "cash in" and not have to work for many years.-----And so I did--selling to a member who kept the system going.  I went traveling for several years---then got the urge to create another one.  I did so--in Tampa, Fla for 7 more years.  Then I got another vision---living on the road---sold the house hit the road and have done this ever since.

I think I can summarize in a few paragraphs what I learned about communal living those 17 years.

1.  Self fulfillment is the basic purpose.  (Teilard De Chardin:  "Isolation is a dead end.  The self is fulfilled in community") Close living makes it easy to absorb qualities you admire in others.

2. There are 6 major challenges to group functioning.
   A. Power:---who will run things?
   B. Property:  Who owns what?
   C. Privacy: Protection of personal space.
   D. Performance: How will things get done?
   E. Peacemaking:  How are conflicts resolved?
   F. Personnel: How do you select and evict members?

The great breakthrough came when I saw that each of these challenges could be met with TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS:
*Power: Everyone was required to lead the group for one month----two months if you enjoyed it,
*Property: Your stuff was your stuff.
*Privacy: Color wheel on each door--6 colors--dial a mood---violators subject to eviction.
*Performance: All house chores were up for bid.  Lowest bid got the job and the money it paid from                            the common fund. (money is condensed energy--and it is the cleanest way to                                        exchange energy.)
*Peacemaking: Done by the leader--WITHOUT JUDGMENTS--by shuttle diplomacy. (facilitating                               peace, Kissinger style, by transmitting perspectives back and forth till each party was
                          satisfied. (this was our finest social invention--It never failed to resolve matters)
Personnel:  To join us you had to be INTERESTING.  You were evicted if you became                                          UNPOPULAR. (This also worked beautifully---avoided the tedious right/wrong game).

What I learned in one sentence: "LOVE WILL GROW ON A FOUNDATION OF JUSTICE---BUT NOT VICE VERSA."