Communities

2009-8-20 04:19:00

Dan gave some good comments on his experiences with community living. Here are a few things he said:

"In my experience with it, it seemed that everyone (all rugged individualists) all wanted everything their own way and wanted to get every detail perfectly planned out prior to actually doing anything, so nothing is what got completed.

"There were endless iterations of the design process which would boil nearly to a close when, each time, another issue inevitably cropped up or an old one that someone thought could be dealt with better.

"So my advice along those lines is develop an upgrade rollout plan in advance and get a finalized design for Community version 1.0 that is 'good enough' and get it underway planning for cumulative, per-planned upgrades to Community versions 1.5, v2.0, v3.0, etc.

"Have a pre-defined, detailed process of arriving at group decision that everyone involved knows, understands and not only agrees to be bound."

JJ:

This is good advice. One of the greatest mistakes people of goodwill make is too much reliance on democracy or group involvement in decision making.

Yes, I am teaching a brand of democracy in Molecular Politics, but this is not the highest form of government. The highest is the spiritual Molecular Relationship which corresponds somewhat to the USA Founding Father's concept of a Representative Republic. The Republic does not work well at present because it is corrupted and did not have self-correction built into it as the Molecular Relationship will. Therefore The United States Of America needs to fall back on the will of the people which would be a big improvement at present.

Suppose someone wants to start a community and gathers people around him and says: "Hey guys, let start a community where everyone has a say. We'll take ideas and vote on what's best."

Such an approach will produce mediocre ideas and a tremendous amount of conflict and hurt feelings.

The molecular way is for an initiate to come up with a plan and present it as "the plan." He listens to comments and suggestions and takes the best of them. He can call for a vote on certain matters if he wants, but because he is initiating the project he is the final decider and he needs to make sure the group understands that.

Then after the plan gets under way individuals will either be assigned or take upon themselves a portion of the work that they will oversee and leadership positions will be acquired through election from the bottom up.

There are a number of things I am against that exist in some planned communities. I do not think many group endeavors should be mandatory such as eating together as a group, community gardens, community farming, businesses, etc. Neither should they be forbidden but should only exist if they evolve naturally through free will. For instance, I wouldn't enjoy eating with a big group all the time but would now and then.

Zion is more about being in each other's proximity to blend mental and spiritual energies than doing everything together as a group. The power of individuality must always be maintained while at the same time advancing in group consciousness.