Greetings.
How to make a community with so here few interested?
How are you weathering without community?
How can we go from Main St to Back to the Land?
Who cares to reply?
You have actually written somewhat about something I have thought about writing. ~~“Why are there so few posts on The Forum?”
I don’t know. I just have my guess. We are one of the oldest communities in the U.S. -More than 55 years. I’ve been coming to this website for a long time, and to the Forum since it was initiated. I met my wife, and we now have six children, thru this site. And in all this time, I’ve noticed something. At least thru my own filters, noticed something.
When The Back to The Land Movement started, we were all (mostly) happy, optimistic (about our abilities to create something better), fun and fun-loving hippies. We were going to create a new world.
And many of us did. And for several generations now, we have lived a good life and welcomed so many to come and share it. Many of us just didn’t worry about the little things, and we were going to fix the big things. So, as in our case, we started a recycling center, a large -healthy food co-op market, a barter group, a shared babysitting group. We built cabins for homeless to stay, we provided shelter for women and children needing a safe place. We established a Survival Fund, which was able to provide (among other things) food, clothing, furniture, money to Native Elders and families across Turtle Island. And we had the largest organic gardens in N. Ohio. --And other stuff.
But a few years ago, things began to change. The people coming here began to have more of an attitude of privilege. -What can we do for them, instead of what can we do together. We have always just asked people to just be fair and give what they get. And they ask, “How many hours?” Conversations were beginning to be a bit more contentious. And we even had to ask some people to leave (that was a very big deal to us, we didn’t want to turn away from anybody).
But you didn’t ask about us, you asked about “here”, the Forum. The Forum, at least for me, has fairly well mirrored what has been happening to our own community. There have lately been mostly non-community people writing on the Forum. And often they contend, or complain. It is not fun. There have been a particular several who have especially been a trial.
So my guess is that -maybe many of those good, pleasant hippies from awhile ago, who have been doing the “community thing” for a long time, just don’t need the drama, upset, lectures, and such, from very inexperienced folks, who think they have the solutions to most everything. Maybe if we all were a bit less bellicose and contentious, we would all get along better. And maybe more folks would feel more like posting.
Oh well, there is so much more to say on the subject. And I hope some others chime in. But for me, for tonight, this is enough.
Really sad that it’s this way. The internet and lack of actual socialization for young folks has shaped and entitled generation that can’t see beyond the lens of the expectations they have formed from staring at other people’s pretend lives. I wish I knew how to fix it, but at some point, I feel like I have to shut it all off and worry only about my connection with the land and those that share that connection. This puts folks like me in a difficult spot. I am just now, beginning my search for connection and it’s not easy to find because of this. That makes the decision to break the wheel in my own life a much more difficult decision, even though I know how bad I need it.
Communities be made by way of correlations; nerds, geeks, techs, engineers, gamers (table/surface/console (anything that hath computing capabilities)/etc…), family, kin, friends, work etc… If we noth be intersted, why be this community exist for those in interest…?
Please refer to answer of first question; the weather noth always fair… (Ha. Ha.)
Refraining from logical and facetious response of traversings, & verifying of [cap]abilities by way of can.
Doth mean noth in/of care if noth reply? Be ot fair to ultimate our actions/decisions based on what yi migh inaccurately observe?
Greetings. Thanks for your thoughts.
Saw your intro. Where are you now? Tested yourself in the field? Gardening now? Skills? Savings? Obligations?
Tell us about yourself, what did you eat today?
Lotsa room here for help, good eats, modest keeps.
Farmersjoy@proton.com