On Mon, 14. Dec 1998  BeiYin wrote: 
BeiYin: Why should one do something for diversity, when already too many problems show up with dealing what is there? To survive, the first interest must be to establish one's own system. Right? If this is done then it is possible to do something which is not directly meant to satisfy one's own needs. This might sound egoistical, but how can one take care for others if the own situation is unbalanced? To give energy out means to weaken one's own insecure position and increases the possibility of failure. 

On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 03:08:04 -0700 Roan Carratu worldmind@geocities.com wrote:
Roan: First, I want to tell you that most of my previous message was a test. I needed to know more about your reactions to my words... or I could not help you at all. Now I am sure I cannot help you much, but I figure it does not hurt to respond to your points in this message. Also, I never just reply to a single person on a list... everything I say is to everyone who reads it. If I want to reply to an individual, it would be off the list. I wish only good for you, and wish you great success.
BeiYin:I am tempted to edit your responses, first all what has nothing to do with the subject like your emotional reactions and then all what is misunderstood and is mixing different levels. But I guess there wouldn't be left much and on the other hand it wouldn't be complete, although it's getting bored because of too many words... So who has the patience to read on will need  enough interest in the subject. (Also your remarks and your email address tells that you see yourself as a kind of guru and so I can't dare to delete what you generously have given out. Also why should something written in the Internet be different than what happens in daily life, so we will have to hassle through... 

On Sun, 13 Dec 1998 19:32:13 -0700,  Roan Carratu worldmind@geocities.com wrote:
Roan: Where in Universe do you find one system existing by itself? 
BeiYin: Every system exists by itself, therefore it is called 'system'. That doesn't mean that there is total independence from other systems or the whole. Each 'system' reacts and acts out of its own structure, triggered by surrounding influences and other systems. That there is a 'playing together' with certain rules and consequences is well known, even in parts the influences are not perceptible, at least not by normal senses (like influences from asteroids for example). 

Roan: Every system is part of a greater system and made up of lesser systems.  Even human social system have this relationship. On all levels of systems there is an inflow and an outflow between systems, required by every system for it's continuing existence as a system. Most, if not all, systems within a system interact through this flow, and rely on each other for continuing existence. 
BeiYin: Thanks for your demonstration about your knowledge about 'systems', although this kind of knowledge doesn't serve much to solve problems because it is too much limited to the head... 
Roan: Even stars are parts of galaxies and galaxies part of galactic super clusters.  Nothing exists separate from anything else, and if one attempts to purely take care of oneself without recognizing the whole, they will always fail. 
BeiYin: Even stars turn around themselves, so do galaxies and as well super clusters. They all exist by themselves in a certain relation to each other, yes, this makes it that it works, even there is no conscious 'recognition'. (Stars never had eaten apples!) And exactly that is the reason why it works with stars but doesn't work with human systems, because they have fallen out of the connection with the whole. I guess this was after they had eaten those apples from the forbidden tree. The intention, coming out of the old longing, to live 'together' in a creative way, must fail: They are NOT conscious or not conscious enough to relate to each other in a responsible and independent way, what also includes the respect of the other individual systems, not wanting to take over by power games, etc. 
Roan: There is no 'independence'. The word is a polite fiction, used for convenience in communication about a given system while fictionally disregarding the other systems involved closely with it.
Interdependence is the reality, and this interdependence is very obscured by conceptual 'axioms' which deny it so tightly in many people that they live day to day interdependent while proclaiming their independence (even filtering their perceptions tightly to 'see' it). Without perceiving cleanly the interdependence, nobody will see any reason to put up with much of anything, so they go their own way. 
Getting a community together where most of the people see the interdependence is difficult.
BeiYin: Now you are talking from such a high pitched intellectual level that I hardly can follow. I will try to translate it into my simple way: It is not true that there is no independence. For example: I do not depend on you about what you express or not. You can say whatever you want, it is nearly impossible for you that you can insult me. If you say something about me which is true, then this is not an insult. If you say something which is not true, maybe because I can't recognize it or you don't know me and are talking just out of your own projection, so you are talking about yourself, so it can't insult me. This could change if I would fall in love with you, then more probably would be dependency. If you are a women then I might project my mother into you, if you are a man then my father. As there are unsolved histories from early relationships, so I would depend on you and therefor would have reactions depending how you express yourself. In other words: how you treat me. But you are just one of these many cyber gurus and I can listen what you say, use what fits but do not depend in any way on you. Right? 
So when I am talking about 'independence' in relationships especially in IC's than I am talking about people who are conscious about those common games which hold people in dependence. So I am tired being the father for everybody, giving shelter, food and love, so people feel good because it's their parents house, etc. 
Another example: I depend in my Internet connection on the telephone line and on the electricity company, without them I would not be able to connect. But we will install a solar voltaic system and then there is independence at least in this point. So I am conscious about my interdependence but I will try to get out of it. Then I might be free and not depend on the electricity company but then I will depend on the sun, but as there is sunshine 300 days of the year in Ibiza, so that's much more independence than before. Apart of that I am feeling much better because I am using clean energy. Right? 
Roan: I lived in a community I would bet was more like what you have in mind than anything else in history and it had 1500 people in it and existed for 20 years.
BeiYin: Tell me the name of this community and I bet it is one of those with a leader, a strong common concept, an ideology, etc. and so it worked for a while, until the people were growing out of it and breaking out of the cocoon, or the leader had left them and power games took over, probably falling back into the trap of making money... 
Roan: It failed because of dynamics inside and outside it had no knowledge of.  Even it was vulnerable. 
BeiYin: The reason is not clear from your description, but it is pretty sure that this was not a community which comes near to my vision.
(I am just wondering: If there were 1500 people and the community failed, where are all those people gone? Meanwhile they are all dead and you are the only who survived? If the experience was so wonderful, why people didn't install other communities in other places around the world? Are there nobody left? Is there nobody in the  Internet? Why are you the only person who has responded to this subject?) 
Roan: All modern communities grow around someone, as you are seeking to draw people around you. 
BeiYin: What you call 'modern communities' seem to be the old way people think and live. This can't function anymore and no wonder that all those must fail. When you write that 'all' are like this, then you are confirming what I wrote...
You write that I am seeking to draw people around me. Can't you imagine that there could be another way to form a community? Obviously not. 
Roan: As a seed crystal grows in a supersaturated solution, so do people collect around words they learn from and character they admire, even if wrongly. 
BeiYin: Indeed, it is the old way: Adapting a concept and trying to live it or following a leader. That's exactly what I don't want and that's why it is still difficult to find people for something what is different: With a new way to deal with oneself and the world around us. Not following someone who pretends to know where we have to go, trapping people with beautiful words, promises and comforting concepts. 
I am looking for people who are tired of the old way, who want to get out of interdependence and who are partly out of it, not because of saturation but because of being grown out of the cocoon of limited personality. 
Roan: The Farm Community grew in San Francisco around Stephen Gaskin, and moved as a vast caravan of busses to Tennessee, where they bought land and moved in together. It was a subculture, as all communities become subcultures. If you expect otherwise, you will be disappointed. Gaskin was the leader for a number of years, and then stepped aside, a mistake, I think.  We were too successful, and our country's intelligence 'service' closed us down for being involved with natives in Central America where they were, and are, committing genocide. We are lucky they didn't do something much worse to us. 
Roan: You think too small, and if you would be successful, you have to see people as equals, even if they do not do what you would consider reasonable or 'spiritual', you have to see them as equals and hash it out, work it out, be willing to hassle about it until a solution is found, and if you will do that, solutions will be found.
BeiYin: Nice concept to see people as equals. But tell me who is practicing this concept in a community? Or in one's daily life where ever one might be? 'You have to see people as equals!' (Now I can understand and see that this comes out of your guru attitude) I am able to see people as 'equals' because for me all ARE equal, but I also see their limitations and I am no longer so silly and naive to make a goat a gardener. I am willing to hassle about it until a solution is found, I do. Why do you think I am doing this since more than 25 years and why I am into discussions like this one now, from which probably nothing concrete will come out. I am trying hard since four years with the Internet and there are only beautiful ideas, arguments and endless words. So I am pretty tired about this as well, but still I am going on. - - - Until a solution is found, you are right. 
Roan: I have read your web site. Most of it. And you are right that the internet cannot help you much. We are spread all over, so how can we even visit your land? 
BeiYin: I don't understand your question. Do you mean how you can come to FalconBlanco? You can come anytime just sending me an email or phone me, then I can tell you if there is space for you at this moment. Also we would like some more personal information about yourself. We would like a photo and we would like to know why you want to come to visit us. You don't need any money if you are willing to integrate yourself into the daily life with us. 
Roan: > Also, the internet is very much purely a 'word' type place, and there is not much more anyone can do here. >
BeiYin: I am convinced that there can be done much more about the Internet. This is another subject in which I am very interested but this is now not the right place.
Roan: > But it is a learning place, and I merely wanted to share with you what I learned. >
BeiYin: I do appreciate this and I believe it might make a difference. Otherwise I would not sit here for many hours in front of a screen... 
Roan:  > I see everyone as equals, have for decades, and continue to do so. It's the Truth that we are all equals, in the same way that we are alike in our DNA. The human DNA is almost exactly the same, with the small differences barely observable... and in the same way, our equality is also apparent, while our differences are very slight, if magnified in our egos. I do not view our equality from a conceptual basis, like a castle in the sky, but rather from an observational basis. We are equal in every way that counts.
BeiYin: I do not agree but I believe that there is said enough now about this. 

Roan:I would bet you are not getting the people you would like to have in your community, but I tell you, if done right, your community can flourish.
BeiYin: What does it mean 'if done right'? I do as good as I can. What does it mean: 'community can flourish'? These are words without any further sense than sounding beautiful.
Roan: 'Community can flourish' means it can become a oasis of respect, beauty, sanity, healthiness, and honesty, among other words which express the best side of Humanity. I have lived in such a place, and know it can become again somewhere... someday it will be the whole planet, although I am not preaching Utopia. There is always a bell curve. 
BeiYin: I would like to learn something from you, but what you offer here seems to be a mixture out of dreams and rose memory. Tell me where this is realized and what are the means to reach this goal in which the 'best side of humanity' is expressed. 
Roan: 'If done right' means that the people involved have to have specific agreements and consistent but non-rigid behaviors that support those agreements.
BeiYin: Those specific agreements can only be part of the manifestation of the state of evolution the people who take part of such a group have realized in their personal growth. Otherwise it is a concept which is adapted, maybe somehow fitting to the people but still not their expression and will cause automatically rigid behaviors. Right? 

Roan: Diversity is defined as Divided, as different, as diverse... and while diversity is ok, there are very few who are actually diverse. Most are just in love with the concept of diversity and think like robots as they follow what their culture has programmed them to think and do. This bullshit concept of diversity is a con job, a shuck, a crap idea which people use to avoid their responsibility to think beyond their programmed fear driven conditioning. 
BeiYin: I agree.
Roan: Excellent!

Roan:People seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. They want total
freedom to do whatever they like, without any regard for others, and yet, they want community, where their neighbor is as important as them, and must be considered in all personal decisions. I lived in a community with people from some 48 countries, especially with native peoples from three continents, and yet, despite different religions and cultures and suchlike, we got along great because it is a basic of all community that everyone is equal and everyone has to consider the others in the community equally with themselves and their needs and desires. Everyone I met, even if I had never met them before, was automatically my friend, and we treated each other as friends. That agreement existed as a 'given' and even if we had to hassled about something, we could stop at any time and say "...but we are still friends, right?"... and it would be true. > 
BeiYin: I can understand that it comforts to have nice memories and I don't want to reduce those, but you are getting emotional and so you are mixing levels and going off the subject. You were living a dream and you couldn't and didn't want to see reality, which was in parts left outside the community
... and it worked well, - for some time, because there was a strong concept, but it had to brake up being artificial supposed upon people which in their base were not yet prepared for it. 
Roan: > This seems almost like a lost art to most, because we live in communities where people do act that way, yet do not know each other, and do not perceive that they act that way. I live in a small city where a hundred thousand people interact every day without hassle, because they follow the natural rules of community without even knowing they are doing that, and the local media makes a great loud fuss about every event which they find which breaks those natural rules of community, and so, if you ask people, they say they are convinced there is no community here, while daily they practice those natural rules.
BeiYin: We are talking here about IC, you are off the subject. 
Roan: Real diversity is something that cannot be squashed without the use of force. It takes a lot to kill off real diversity, as the European Spaniards found when they tried to destroy the Mayan culture that diverged from their european model. They even tried force, on a massive scale, and the result was that the Mayan culture continues on the sides of volcanos of many small Central American countries.
BeiYin: I don't know much about facts, real information is not available, because history is manipulated. But it seems that the Mayan culture was destroyed and what is left over now are just rudiments and even those are destroyed by modern life, influences and the materialistic interests represented by bulldozers and machine guns.

Roan: Forget diversity. Forget it's opposite. 
BeiYin: I haven't said anything about this subject. I just wrote that before doing something which has nothing to do with the own system, one has to look first to establish one's position.
Roan: ???
Roan: Just decide what you want in the way of community, in it's basics, and make sure everyone who comes and visits understands what those basics are, then, if they are not outrageous, let them move in. If they live there, fine, if they leave fine... if they go outside the basics, raise hell until the problem is solved, not necessarily by them leaving, although that is one of the 12 solutions that always exist, but by making agreements as to the problem, and try out the agreements.
BeiYin: That's exactly what we are doing in FalconBlanco. It is not necessary to understand the basics, but it is necessary to agree with them. 
Roan: If someone does not understand the basics, then they cannot agree with them. 
BeiYin: Isn't it sometimes inevitably necessary to make a personal experience before it is possible to 'understand' something? Is it necessary to understand something to be able to accept it? Do you understand 'life' or 'destiny' or 'love'? How can you understand if you haven't lived it or had some deep inside into it which had to go beyond 'understanding' to be able to understand it. OK, another example, everybody will understand: When you were a child, your parents said thing you should do or not do. You accepted this without understanding why. Yes, your parents tried to explain, but sometimes it was just not possible, so you had to accept it and you did, because you had trust. Isn't it still today the same that we accept things we can't understand, but we believe that it is right? It feels right to us, even we don't understand why and we know that we can trust this. Right? So it is possible, that somebody reads all what we are discussing and doesn't understand all of it, but senses or whatever you will call it, that there is something which is different from all that what is written or said somewhere else. And this 'something' feels right. This shows that there is 'trust', but in a way going beyond 'understanding' not limited to the mind. This person then can receive something essential, which is not filtered by the usual personal defense system. 
Roan: And while the basics of a community need not be written down, they must be carefully discussed with all new people or, without understanding, nothing will come from them joining the community. The basics do not have to be word for word specific, but they have to be expressed clearly and the lives of the people in the community must be the best example of those basics in practice. 
BeiYin: Isn't that what we are doing here now? To come together? Or is it that we are defending our position? So 'being clear' means to sort out what doesn't fit into one's own concept? Right? Can you see me or are you just irritated? 
BeiYin: For example: Even if somebody doesn't understand what 'meditation' is and why it is good to do it, this person should agree to participate. Here in FalconBlanco we come together every evening to meditate for half an hour and we say that it would be good that everybody does it in the morning for themselves. There is nobody who will raise hell if somebody is not participating, but if this happens frequently, these persons put themselves outside and will not feel comfortable. This will come up and is then discussed. So there will be a solution or this person leaves.
Roan: In my community back then, we always had 'fair witnesses' sitting in on every discussion where something was being figured out between people who had opinions about the situation. The other options would usually come from someone who was not real involved in the discussion emotionally or personally. They were usually surprising and often, at first, seemingly either improbable, or acceptable by both or many immediately.
BeiYin: 'The fair witness' is an interesting suggestion. So this person is kind of wise, who is not engaged in what happens. Where do you get such people? Although I haven't practiced this with such a person, I have experienced it myself even involved in a situation or discussion. The 'fair witness' is always present in each of us, we just have to give space to it...

Roan: And recognize that you might be the problem in any given situation and it might be you that must change or make an agreement... 
BeiYin: I am conscious about this. That does not mean that I will make agreements or bad compromises to comfort somebody in her/his personal structure. 
Roan: As long as you respect their 'personal structure' that's fine. But we had a saying... 'The only way to change others is to change ourselves'. This is not always applicable, but sometimes by being willing to change, and not clinging to something or some opinion in a rigid way, the other person also becomes less rigid and a reasonable compromise can be worked out.
BeiYin: I don't know to whom you are talking now, maybe to the reader, but surely not to me.
Roan: - that there has to be common basic agreements everyone values or the community is doomed. And the agreements must not be real changeable or they will change onto dissipation.
There has to be rigidity as well as flexibility for community to exist.
BeiYin: I tend more to flexibility and leave things to the responsibility of each member. >
Roan: The rigidity has to be the common agreements, although they can be changed if everyone in the community agrees. If everyone leaves the responsibility to other's maturity, then they will do as they will and that may or may not be to the advantage of the community. The answer to that is very frequent meetings, not formal things, but informal. We lived together in large households of many families, and we spent some time every evening making sure everyone was cool with what was going on. If anyone was not happy with events or practices, we talked about it, and often, we changed something. Our agreements were the basic of our community, but they were not restrictive in most ways. It's the personal connection between people that makes the community, not the agreements, and we spent a lot of time making sure the connection was healthy. 
BeiYin: We meet only once a week for special purpose, but we are all together for meal and evening meditation. And as we are a small group, we are doing many things together during the day. 
BeiYin:  Of course, to live this it needs kind of 'grown ups' and exactly this seems to be the most difficult to accomplish. To run a kindergarten that's no problem and FalconBlanco would be an ideal place for it: Beautiful surrounding, a lot of space with room for every body, opportunity to do what ever someone likes. Food in abundance with little effort to get it. Many animals to play with and many toys as well (Computers, Internet, etc.)  But I don't want to run a kindergarten, I have been doing this now for many years, not because I wanted this but because it turns out to be like this, still now.

Roan: That's why communities are hard to start... especially nowadays when everyone is about as conceptually divided as it is possible to make them.
BeiYin: I don't think it is difficult to start them. You only need a concept which comforts the actual trend or you adapt the established concept of an ideology. You might buy or rent some land, construct some inipis or tipis or put some caravans if there is no other housing available. People will come easily and you may start. I have watched this here in Ibiza for twenty five years. Communities are coming and going, some last half a year, some about two years, then they disappear. FalconBlanco exists for twenty four years now, does this say something?
Roan: Then why are you complaining? Perhaps it is too easy to live there.
BeiYin: I'm not complaining, my attitude is slightly different: I'm expressing what I think and what I feel. Yes, it is too easy and it is too difficult. There is always a good reason to complain, that's what people like to do, that's their usual game with themselves and others. As I made it clear enough by now: I am tired of this.
Roan: If you own the land, then that makes you the power in the community, and it will fail, for sure. The land must be held in common or the community will fail. period. 
BeiYin: It fails anyway, not matter who the owner is. To make it depending on a piece of paper this is just too simple. To believe that someone can 'own' land is absurd. This is part of the materialistic, limited view of blown up personalities which form that what they call society and culture and which is in the first place made up by power games. Forget it, period. Land is owned by the one who cares for it. If he leaves, because he dies or in another way, he can't take the land with him and so he is not the owner anymore. Pretty clear. Right? Yes, there are laws to protect property etc. and they will give you a piece of paper, etc. If you are clinging to this, go and install a kindergarten, where everybody is owner of a part of a piece of paper, - but forget about a community, period.
Roan: In this, you are ignoring the greater system, and this is a pitfall. You may not want 'the paper' to mean anything, but it does to the authorities and to would-be members of any community. The paper does not represent the land, it represents the men with guns which will come to forcibly kick off anyone who the 'owner' of the land wants to have kicked off. Land is owned by the government, and the 'paper' is your permission to live there. This is the greater system, and the natives of this land, of America, know that better than anyone else. If you philosophically declare it different, it is meaningless to anyone but you. If your name is on the deed, or you represent the person whose name in on the deed, then your words carry a weight none other can ignore. It cannot be ignored by the other people, who will not be natural with you, and rarely completely honest.
BeiYin: What is a 'greater system' for you? You call the government a greater system? To whom I am talking here, what kind of level is this? What is the government? Land is owned by the government? What is it you are talking about? And you are quoting the natives of America for this? You are twisting the truth, how only a 'pale face' can do it. You are the occupier of the land because you conquered it, you made the laws to defend your position. That's the level of dogs peeing at the corners and trees so making it to their territory. If dogs could write, they would write papers about it and claim their rights. And naturally then anyway the strongest will take what he wants,  no written paper will stop him...
I don't declare anything, that would be the same as you do and the dogs do, doesn't matter if it is philosophically or about the ownership of conquered land. Don't you see in what kind of dirty game you are still involved? You are talking about honesty? Good heaven, what a level! This is a demonstration how blind someone can be and betray himself because of self interest. You are talking like this after decades of experience with communities! No wonder that there are no IC's functioning...
Roan: There can't be equality if somebody has the power to kick off someone else without a consensus of the community as a whole... the owner of the land is the landlord, and the landlord is the authority.  Nobody else will put much effort into the community if they can be kicked off by the whim of the landlord.
BeiYin: I see myself as the keeper of this place who cares for it. I got this place as a present, the circumstances were arranged in a way that I could buy this place. I don't see myself as the 'owner'. Yes, I feel responsible as long as I am here, but I can delegate this responsibility to other people who live here and I am able to leave this place if there are people who take care and I am called to another place. The same with all the animals here in FalconBlanco. Who can 'own' a living being? This is absurd. If an animal comes to me, it doesn't matter how. If they just come to our place and decide to stay here and we do accept them, or if we find them left on the street, we take care of them if they stay, then they are part of FalconBlanco and we feel responsible for them. Who 'owned' a cat knows that he doesn't own the cat, in contrary: The cat always owns you! 
Roan: If you can 'delegate' the responsibility, then you are the owner and your protestations and philosophy is paper thin. However, I am not saying that this is a major problem except when there are problems between you and others in the community. Then it counts, and counts big. If it is spoken, an open fact, and part of the agreement from the first day someone is considering living in your community, then it does not have to be a great problem, but then you have to accept that you have the finial word in any decision. If you say it means nothing, when everyone knows it ultimately defines the relationship, then the agreements are fiction and the basis of the community is a lie. People will not long put up with that, even if the stated reason they leave is something else.
BeiYin: I am not talking out of a philosophy, I am talking out of practical life. Just yesterday we all had a talk about this. When I had to make clear certain things: That is shows little conscious behavior, when somebody after three weeks of being a member of our group takes things out of the storeroom and claims them to be his property by writing his name on it, - without consulting the others. I explained that every thing has it's history and that every thing can freely be used from everybody but that claiming an ownership is not possible like they tried. OK, I am the 'owner' of what is there, the land included, because I worked for it and cared for it and what it is now is the result of investing a big part of my life into it. Even if I would go away and leave everything to the people here, it would not work out. Why not? Because 'community' is a process which involves the whole being of everyone. This might be a long process, which maybe has started right now, but had the preparation and initial phase since twenty years. Who jumps now into this process should be aware of it and know that one has to be very cautious and conscientious about everything. With the right people this is no problem, because they are ready and it doesn't need much agreements, if they are not ready, than even agreements in details doesn't work out...
Roan: And you cannot have a community of only three people. That is a family, not a community, even if the people are not related by blood. That rarely works. A hundred is more like it. 1500 was too many.
BeiYin: A community does not depend on a bigger number, with three persons it is possible: "If there are two or three in my name coming together, then I am among you." This said a spiritual teacher some time ago. And even I am not Christian, I agree with it. By the way: We are now six people and there were up to twelve living here before. 
Roan:In that case, again, why are you complaining?  Two or Three coming together is not a sustainable community. That is communion, but not community by itself. Living in one place is not community necessarily either, 3 or 300... but to live together without great pain and hassle, and to know one another, community is there, even if not spoken of. Usually hard times or emergencies bring out knowledge of community, make visible what is otherwise taken for granted...
BeiYin: Again, I'm not complaining. I have made a statement. And I will make an other one: I am convinced that if a community doesn't have also a kind of 'communion' then it can't work. I am not talking about something religious but a deep personal experience which is realized and practiced in daily life. If there is great pain or hassle or not, has nothing to do with it. But whatever there is, it can be shared and will not be taken for granted. 
Roan: There is a perfect size. Somewhere between 100 and 1000... It is where everyone else knows everyone else by face and personality and a history of interaction... if it gets past that in size, so people don't know each other, division is easy to create unless some kind of organizational system is in place to make up for the non connection.  The Farm went through about 20,000 people to find the 800 adult members which made it up. Originally, there were about 200 adults.
BeiYin: This is not a response to my statements. Big numbers of people don't say that there is something right or working in the way I have described it as a vision. The 'Farm' somehow is functioning because they have a rigid system... and for sure it is not what I have in mind.
Roan: You are living with people, not visions.
BeiYin: You are doing again your tricky twisty tricks on me? To whom are you talking?
Roan: You know nothing of the Farm except what I have told you, and you do not know if it was rigid or not. It may not be your vision, but it was community in the best sense of the word.
BeiYin: About thirty years ago I studied a lot of information about communities and also about  'The Farm', I remember enough that I could say something about their rigidity, because that exactly was the reason why I rejected the idea to visit them...
Roan: This is my experience, not just concepts. I lived in that community for 9 years, about, and it was the most beautiful experience I have ever had. I yearn for it, even now.
BeiYin: This is not a response to my statements. To say that it was a beautiful experience and that you yearn for it, is not an argument for anything concrete.
Roan:It was my testimony to you, and you devalue it?  Perhaps this is the reason for your problems. Expecting everything said to you in response to be argument is not good communication, especially in a community. It shows bad attitude, and bad attitude is anathema to community. Arguing is far too rigid and polarizes everyone. There is a better way to do things than argue. If you think I am arguing with you, you are mistaken. I share perspective with you, opinion, experience, but I don't care to argue. I gain nothing by arguing, and neither do you. No benefit to either of us. We may not agree on everything, but we need not argue. If you see this as an argument, then we will terminate the argument immediately.  If this is a discussion, then it is not an argument, and we might both gain some knowledge, if only an other's experience as believed by them... and it is worth it to continue. I like
you, and your experiment, or I would not be talking to you.
BeiYin: If so, (last sentence), why you are riding this lame pony called 'arguing about arguing'? To whom you are talking? I have left long ago behind the horizon and you are still talking...
BeiYin: This might sound theoretical, but I am talking from my  practical life experience: I am trying to establish a community since 1975, that's more than twenty  years, went through many  phases of it and I am for several years trying to give up this idea, which is also difficult because what is there has its own dynamic and goes on. At this moment it looks to me, that whatever 'community'  might exist on this planet, it only can function if there is  a strong given frame (conceptional, religious, dogmatic, visionary, a goal or  a leader, etc.) or a strong physical need (hunger, loneliness, cold, weakness, sickness, isolation, etc.) As far as I know there doesn't exist any community, which bases are individual independence, responsibility, freedom of thinking, responding to situations from own individual viewpoint, self discipline, etc.
Roan:Community is neither 'independence' nor 'dependence'... it is 'interdependence'.  If you seek to build a community based upon 'individual independence' then it will naturally self-destruct, since the concepts of  independence' are purely conceptual and ignores the reality that everything is interdependent. No two people have the exact same concept of independence, so they rarely fit together. But interdependence is observable and not purely conceptual, so there is a basis in truth to living interdependent. In reality, all are interdependent, even if most people ignore the fact and talk about being independent.
BeiYin: When the physical situation is solved (no money problems) then the human personal problems especially between the community members seem  to take over and make a living together impossible. So it looks like, that my initial idea must fail, because it is not possible to get at least three grown up people together, to live freedom, responsibility and spirituality, to be practiced on a daily life level. >
Roan:That is why community is necessary for maturity.
BeiYin: If you want to say by this that the encounter with other people is necessary for the individual to grow mature, then I agree. On the other hand I believe that a certain degree of maturity is necessary to be able to form a 'community' which can function in a creative way. 
Roan:It is in the hassling out of differences that make people grow spiritually, not in placid agreement. The hassling does not have to blow people away from each other, nor be nasty or angry. If people are so rigid in their thinking that hassling causes them to leave, then there was no community to start with, only people living on the same land in a temporary illusion of community. We had a saying; 'we don't want to get rid of the person, only the hassle.' There are always ways to figure out a better way than people leaving, although that is one of the options if people cannot come to terms reasonably.  Just because there are better ways than leaving doesn't mean people have to accept them. People are people, and sometimes they aren't reasonable. But if things are done in real love, rather than in anger, then when someone is being unreasonable, they usually come back to the discussion realizing that they have been unreasonable and the problem is solved then.
BeiYin: I agree. (If the word 'spiritually' is changed against 'mature').
BeiYin: > Whoever comes together, might have great and elevated ideas, but when it comes to realize those images, then the community turns out to be a kindergarten and if there isn't a strong leader, then that's the end... That seems to be the reality. Don't tell me that's a negative view, I am tired of so called 'positive views' which are staying in dreams and wishful images, but when it comes to the daily reality then these must fail. 
Roan:If you throw out all the positive views, then what do you have left?  If your daily reality is not positive, then you have work to do to make them that way. Community is not made on 'ideas' but on the practical working out of differences daily. The people who I found to have the hardest time in community are those who are too nitpicky and those who don't care enough. From your responses to me, which are all I have to go on, you seem pretty nitpicky.
Bei-Yin:You see what you want to see and what you are able to see, probably you are talking to yourself. From your responses to me, which are all I have to go on, it is pretty obvious that most of what you are writing, has little or nothing to do with me. But this doesn't really matter, even though, I believe that something shows up which gives a hint to someone who is reading all this...

On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 17:10:39 +0000 WingdWolf2@aol.com wrote:
Winged Wolf: There is a tribe in South America which is completely communistic. There is no leader. When they go to make a decision, they simply all sit around and talk about it until they all agree. This takes time, but they can afford that. Perhaps not 100% relevant, but interesting. I suspect it only works because they can kick troublemakers out. Just MHO.

BeiYin: Who has made the same experience? I am not looking for confirmation, I am still searching for a creative solution... (and I am convinced that this only can be found by responding to reality and not by nourishing one's dreams or rose colored memories) >

Roan: Nobody can give you a 'creative solution'. We are here, and you are there. You are the one who must come up with a creative solution, from your highest and best heart and mind. >
BeiYin: There is no doubt about it.
Roan: > If you see everything I have said as a personal attack on you, then you have a lot of changing to do within yourself. I need not spend this time saying all this to you. I do this as a gift. I gain nothing by saying anything to you. I am seeking to give you the perspective of someone who lived a very long time on a successful community, who has studied many communities, some 300 years old, and I know something worth knowing if you are trying to do community. You can ignore or accept my advice and observations of your posts as you will, of course, and that is fine with me. If I did not like you, or saw you as an enemy, or disrespected you, I would not be sending you any posts. I hope you are successful, and pray for you in my own way.
BeiYin: I would have liked more if you could have seen me, but even though you didn't, you gave me the opportunity to express myself and so I could clear up and precise some thoughts about IC and something more. I do what feels right and what I want to do and you are doing the same I guess.
BeiYin:  > and have the silly expectation, that it could be possible that a few like minded people could come together, at least in the cyber space, and have a creative exchange... Why 'still'? Because I worked thirty years on this and even I have to realize that it is an illusion, I must try at least to make something out of it which might be a creative solution, for this there is, for me personally, limited lifetime left and when I have to go,  I don't want to admit that every thing has failed. Easy to understand, right? That doesn't mean that I expect that anybody does something to do me a favor. If there is something necessary to be done then it must come out of the need for the moment, individual and for the whole and there seems to be a lack. There seem to be very few people who are able to jump their own shadow, what means to go beyond their own (lousy) personality. This obviously is the main obstacle. I have written a lot about it in my Web site and I believe that I have also given a key to solve this, although there is not yet a common interest for it. But I guess I will go on with it...