The Communal Creation Paradox

by Raven

The Communal Creation Paradox can be stated simply: We need more communities and we try to discourage folks from starting them.

It seems crazy–but I do it. I do it because I don’t want anyone to try to start a community without knowing just how hard it will be.

Yana Ludwig, in her book Together Resilient (under the name Ma’ikwe Ludwig) talks about why she does this same thing. I am going to quote her at length.

“I’m told that the most memorable 10 minutes of my ‘Starting an Intentional Community’ workshop are the first 10 minutes. That’s because I do my best to try to talk people out of attempting to start a new community as my first obligation to the movement. I also generally use the phrase ‘batshit crazy,’ which sticks in people’s minds for some strange reason.

“Why would I talk people out of it? I clearly want more communities in the world. … And I clearly think it can be done well. …

“… I think that part of the obligation of experienced people in any movement is to not sugar-coat the hard stuff. Speaking honestly builds trust and is just fair. So long as we are pairing that reality check with concrete support for those who decide to stick with it, this simply feels to me like the right thing to do.”

I’ve written a bunch of articles on how to start a commune, what I see as the steps involved, and what I see as the steps you need to take before you take these steps–as well as what I think is involved in building communities that last and why you can’t build one by yourself. I strongly discourage folks from just getting a place or some land and putting out your ideas and expecting folks to just flock in. And if they do, you may soon discover the process quickly becomes a lot harder than you’d expect.

Community living has been described as “…the longest, most expensive personal growth workshop you will ever take.” (Diana Leafe Christian attributes this quote to Zev Paiss.) Trying to start a commune or community is that workshop on steroids. It’s incredibly challenging and I don’t advise anyone to try it.

And, I really hope some people do, because we really need more communities–of all types, but especially income-sharing communities. And, I am about to leave the comforts of Glomus Commune (a very well functioning community) to try to start a new income sharing community in New England. (I will talk more about this in the future.) And since I’ve been part of creating a bunch of communities, I know just how hard (perhaps close to impossible) it will be. However, if folks took our advice and no one tried to start any communities, we wouldn’t have the rich variety of communities we have now.

The (mostly made up but probably accurate) statistic is that ninety percent of new communities fail. My take is that if that’s true, we’re going to have to go out there and start a hundred new communities, so that at least we will have ten new successes. So, who’s up for a massive challenge?