Cohousing-L Mailing List: another thought on community

[Gregory D. Wadlinger (Gregory.D.Wadlinger]

        Gosh, this thread has really got my brain going.  Please allow me a
brief point on community.

In retail it's better to let the customer discover why he/she likes a
particular item than to hover over the person, describing exhaustively, in
effect, why you are so desperate to unload this item on the customer.

"Community" is better when it is "discovered" by its adherents than when the
powers-that-be create "common ground" and then inform people in how to "use"
it.
  
Children create their own fun in any old place.  Their happiness and
contentment is architectureless, or at least by default, not design.  Give
'em a couple of boards they can stand on to keep them from falling out of the
tree, and they're content; they have a "clubhouse".

Similarly, I have always felt that personnel management could benefit from
increased casualness, from the absense of contrivance, artifice, or what
otherwise might be identified as the unspoken managerial architecture of the
organization.  I have sat on boards, both at work and with volunteer
organizations, and I hate meetings and agendas.  I hate it especially if the
so-called "forum" soliciting input from the rank and file comes at the end of
the meeting when everyone wants to get the heck out of the room. 

 Life is too short to spend so much of it being serious, diplomatic, and
boring.  Anything you have to say can be announced over bagels and cream
cheese on Friday morning.  You bring the bagels.

I repeat, life is too short.  How long do you suppose you're going to live
that you feel you can even sacrifice one evening arguing where the septic
system should go?  Instead, have a scavenger hunt, and the first one who
finds all the clues and follows them correctly gets to decide which
leechfield plan gets adopted.

that's all for now.

Greg

wadlinger [at] dartmouth.edu