The Secret to Communal Living

by Raven

Is there a secret to communal living?  There’s probably several, but here’s what I think is an important one.

Lower expectations.

I heard one of the Core Group members at Ganas Community once say that it was almost predictable.  One person would come to the community and within a day declare that this is what they had been always looking for and they hoped they would stay there forever.  Another person would come and say, “It’s okay.  I’ll probably stay here a few months.”

Two years later, the person who declared they had found their true home was long gone, having lasted less than a month–probably leaving soon after they found out that things there were actually less than perfect.  The person who thought they might stay there a couple of months, was still there a couple of years later, just plugging along.

If you’re looking for the perfect community that will meet all of your needs, I strongly doubt that you will find it.  If you’re looking for a place where you can get along with most of the folks and with which you have some commonalities–much easier to find.

Your community probably won’t look like this.

Related to this in my mind is the problem of community as family.  A lot of experienced communards don’t want to go there–although there are definitely some that do see it that way.  One reason some communards don’t like that notion is because they’ve come from difficult and dysfunctional families and the idea of “community as family” doesn’t appeal to them.  But another big reason is that they have too many bad experiences with people who come looking for family–and many of these folks didn’t grow up with siblings so they have an idealized view of family.

I have written that some of the most successful communards have had siblings.  If they’re looking for family (and I will admit that I am) they have a much more realistic idea of what that entails.  Those of us that have grown up with sibs can tell you that you won’t always get along, that it will be difficult at times, and that sharing isn’t always easy.

And very few families look like this.  Thank goodness.

Sharing isn’t always easy and neither are most of the other aspects of community living.  If you approach life in community with lower expectations, you are more likely to get some of  those expectations at least partially met.  Lower expectations.  That’s one of the secrets to communal living.