Cohousing-L Mailing List: Taking Back Our Time

[Dave Wann (davewann]

The connections between cohousing and personal time available (PTA)are many,
and they are very complex, it seems to me. The American culture has run out
of time in general. We eat fast and caffeinate often, getting indigestion
and becoming obese. Court reporters document that we talk faster than we did
ten and twenty years ago. Graphologists point out that our handwriting is
devolving into chicken scratches. Visitors from other countries observe that
we seem to be walking in fast forward. For some reason, we even seem to want
to have sex faster, as the sales figures for books like "Five Minutes to
Female Orgasm" prove.

Cohousing offers us a breath of fresh air because we step outside the
carnival of media to be with other people, maybe to work in the community
garden or put on No-Talent shows. We practice Slow Food rather than Fat Food
(sic), take time to be involved in neighborhood citizenship and local
politics, and reduce the need to duplicate consumption by sharing tools,
skills, and common missions. We don't have to buy expensive alarm systems or
build security walls. We make choices that substitute extrinsic rewards for
intrinsic, eliminating costly travel, entertainment, health care, child
care, elder care, and counselling. There's a discussion of how Waste Makes
Haste at
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16173 This is a chapter I wrote
for the book "Take Back Your Time."

In "Superbia!" (out in late November), "Affluenza," and the forthcoming
"Reinventing Community: Stories from the Living Neighborhoods of Cohousing,"
(August, 2004) there are many discussions about Household Domestic Product;
thinking outside the box of one's home to find cooperative, time-saving
alteratives; going after what really matters instead of wasting time and
money on junk. Cohousers  tend to slough off aspects of the American Dream
that require spotlessness, prestiege-seeking motivated by insecurity, and
workaholism that tries to fill a psychic void.

When we know who we are and what we want, we don't crave extrinsic goals.
The most remarkable finding in the book Affluenza was that many of the pople
who seek power and glory do so out of a sense of insecurity: they can't get
enough to calm their storms on inner chaos. We interviewed psychologists who
documented that millions of Americans try to conquer the outer space of
extrinsic goals but don't have a clue how to "time travel" through inner
space.

The ability of cohousing to offer a safe space for boredom is invaluable.
When we are just hangin' out together, we don't have to look over our
shoulders to see if everyone else is having more fun -- often spending money
to do it. Many studies have documented that in community there is health.
The human immune system produces "healthy hormones" and enzymes when an
individual feels secure and supported by the clan.  For example,
measurements of serotonin levels in blood have been taken in crime-ridden,
neighborhoods-in-crisis, where the cumulative levels were extremely low --
the whole neighborhood was depressed. In contrast, the residents of Roseto,
Pennsylvania had all the right juices flowing. Longevity was legendary in a
multi-decade study of this small town with lots of inter-generational
bonding in families, neighborhoods, churches and social organizations.
People lived longer simply because they were happier. Anthropologist
Margaret Mead wrote that humankind has lived in clans of 12 to 36 people for
99 percent of our occupancy on Earth.

Security pays. The "social capital" (trust, support, cooperation) created in
cohousing becomes an alternative form of currency. We borrow cars, find jobs
for each other, form small business ventures, and entertain each other,
reducing time, stress, and money typically spent looking for ourselves. In
contrast to the monetary currency, social capital is an infinite resource:
The more we spend, the more we have!

I love the the Bertrand Russell observation that "Humankind has so much
become one family that we cannot ensure our own security unless we ensure
the security of all others." When we feel insecure, we waste time and money,
and we tear things apart looking for something to fill ourselves up with. We
work too hard to make more money than we'd need if we just slowed down, took
a deep breath, and began to truly appreciate and want what we have.

That's my take on the connections between cohousing and Time Famine. It's my
aspiration to Take Back my Time every day, even if I need to be an economic
outcast to do it.

Cheers,
Dave Wann
Harmony Village Cohousing Community


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