Thread by @alifeofmovement

1)
There seems to be a pervasive growing interest in communes/refactored religions/communities which I think all stem from the atomization, meaning, and addicting tech crisis (as well as others @peternlimberg ). I’m certainly in this group.

2)
Surprise! It turns out manufacturing a sense of community and belonging is really difficult. Everything from zoning (if you’re buying land), personal interconnection, and finding people that trust/like one another who are up for long standing commitments is just a mess

3)
Given the difficulty, it seemed prudent to do some readings from the field to see current innovations, what others have done, how they’ve failed, and how they’ve succeeded.

4)
I recently host a reading & discussion event to read microsolidarity.cc @RichDecibels and howwegather.org @CasperTk

Originally intended for my crew of 4-5 close friends, we ended up with 13 after using scary language like seriousness, commitment, and social good.

5)
The genuine energy, and engagement was palpable. Everyone could tell something in our social water was missing. I’ve never seen a group so engaged in listening to the backgrounds, values, interests, and motivations of others.

6)
Some major thematic interests voice were:

-It’s not sexy, but exclusivity is key for cohesion. Exclusivity can be relaxed for larger and larger organizations.
-Giving back, and making positive impact on the world (no escapism-ecovillages)

7)
-Mutual-aid in psychological ‘unfucking’ damage which isinevitably accumulated
-Commitment and responsibility paired with support and care
-Truthful emotional expression and engaging in productive conflict
-Spiritual & personal development broadly

8)
Many people were interested in long term civilizational health but pretty much everyone gravitated towards getting something to small to work, or at sink our teeth into as an experiment before tackling the 30/150/X levels of scale.

7)
Most visions fell into one of two buckets
A - Commune style living (large variations in terms of interconnected/dependence)
B - Long term ritual groups (accountability, spirituality, growth, etc..) (Good example: medium.com/things-ive-wri…)

8)
The concept of ‘friend dating’ (@QiaochuYuan), the idea of getting to know someone well enough to figure out if you’d like to make longer term commitments with each other came up and immediately resonated.

9)
The group now has a concrete hike planned explicitly for community development friend dating, with plans for a train trip to visit some of those who joined us virtually.

We also have a ritual group in the works, and will have more field studies/readings.

10)
The biggest issue we didn’t have great ideas on where age diversity, how to find longer term mentors with higher maturity), and have sanity checks from outside the group for inter-group dynamics.

Not-so-secret plan is to trick @Meaningness into being a tribal elder

11)
If this interests you, keep telling people what you’re interested in. Speak one meta-level above your personal vision, and bring people together around that category. Make it known you need not commit to anything now, but you are looking for people looking for commitment.

12)
This energy around social connectedness for maximizing self meaning, potential, and global well-being is a train I’m hopping on and can’t wait to see where it leads.

Trainwrecks gotta start somewhere :)