Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: differences in lifestyles

[Magali Gutierrez (azul1995]

Thank you so much Sharon. Your response makes perfect sense to me. 
Thank you for taking the time to articulate your thoughts so well. 
Magali. 

> On Feb 7, 2020, at 6:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org 
>   
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2020 14:39:02 -0500
> From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: [C-L]_ Differences in Lifestyle
> Message-ID: <6681CF0A-368F-4AB9-92A1-8F0786E4AA02 [at] sharonvillines.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;    charset=utf-8
> 
>> On Jan 22, 2020, at 12:33 PM, Magali Gutierrez via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
>> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Re:Affordable Housing, and Sharon's comment.
>> I want to chime in on Sharon's comment on how comfortable the stretch can be 
>> between people of different backgrounds.I would like to learn more about 
>> that gap.  I work in a multicultural, multi-language environment, but 
>> everyone went to college and keeps up with world affairs. Its New York City. 
>> How is that gap breached?  I am in the first stages of thinking of 
>> initiating a senior cohousing community, and I have no idea how I would 
>> approach and make feel welcome people from all walks of life. Any thoughts?
> 
> I suggest a different approach ? allow everyone to make themselves 
> comfortable. Don?t take it on as your task beyond being welcoming and helpful 
> as a host would be.
> 
> The first thing I do when I want to learn about something is to do research. 
> I read stuff. Researching this topic is very hard ? for an odd reason. Google 
> and other kinds of searches find sources that focus on fixing it. Fix class. 
> Fix lifestyle. Fix income. How to compromise. How to resolve conflict. 
> 
> What is there that needs fixing? 
> 
> Some consider cohousing to be a lesson in living, in self-growth. Well, life 
> is a lesson in living and self growth. If we want more, what do we want? Do 
> we want to live in a lab? Or a gym? Group therapy? Are we in cohousing to fix 
> ourselves?
> 
> The problem in cohousing is not that cohousers are intolerant of 
> diversity?but diverse what? How would the community be different with more 
> diversity? How do we define diverse beyond skin color. Race, ethnicity, age, 
> ability, language, nationality, socioeconomic status, gender, religion, or 
> sexual orientation. "A community is diverse if a wide variety of groups are 
> represented."
> 
> Perhaps the best way to look at this is in our own lives. How diverse are the 
> people we have lunch with? Dinner? Walking dogs? In religiosity? Going to 
> baseball games? To clubs? NASCAR anyone? 
> 
> Does anyone think about planning their week around finding people who are 
> different from themselves to spend time with? Inviting them to dinner at home 
> to meet our neighbors. No, probably not. That isn?t how we meet people. We 
> meet people because they are in our workplace, or in a food court. Exercise 
> class. Somewhere that we have something in common. We both think the Avocado 
> Acre is a rip off and charges high prices because it says it is organic. Or 
> neither of us can do 50 jumping jacks and everyone else can do 100. It?s a 
> spark of something in common. But it isn?t a spark that leads to 24/7 living 
> together.
> 
> Wanting cohousing to be as diverse as possible is reasonable. But how diverse 
> is possible? I just don?t think people want to stretch that far at home. At 
> home, they want to be at home. Over time communities grow more alike. To do 
> anything else would be artificial. I think the best we can do is to be open 
> to opportunities and be sure we aren?t acting on negative ? or positive ? 
> preconceptions. That make everyone feel uncomfortable.
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines, Washington DC
> "Let us make a special effort to stop communicating, so we can have some 
> conversation." Judith Martin
> 
> 
> 
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