Reimagine My Community
The wife (back seat) had said to take the right fork in the road.
He insisted, based on superior knowledge and experience, that they needed to be on the left fork of the road.
He finished up with a rather snarky “Woman, Stop Your Backseat Driving!!!”
A minute later, rounding the bend….
Quite a few years ago—well before the automobile and Henry Ford—we piled lots of people into cities. Often it was for work. Industrial revolution leading to urbanization and that sort of thing.
Building by oceans is always handy when you want to engage in trade with others.
With this came a whole pile of considerations (and assumptions). Things like housing, food supply, transportation networks, electricity and one thing and another.
It’s all fine and dandy when it works well. It’s like a big well-oiled machine (in theory). It often requires a lot of well-oiled machines. Which just need energy to run. Fancy that.
But then along comes “stuff” like COVID-19, climate change and “whatever” (more advanced “stuff”).
Let’s just sample a few things going on. We won’t dive into them in depth—this is just a quick fly by. There are dozens we could add to the four items below, but this is just a sample.
Question the validity of “Zee Problem”—it’s a worthwhile exercise. Yes, we know you might enjoy the cultural, sports and cuisine offerings of a city.
After all, cities built on foundations, independent of Community, are just one of many problems.
Regardless of the causes, the symptoms still plague us.
It’s not as predictable as it was. This impacts crops and life in general.
There is lots of information available elsewhere on the topic of Climate Change and weather.
Regardless of your position, weather is not quite as predictable as it was.
Modern inventory and distribution systems often assume a well-oiled machine (e.g., Just In Time arrival of goods). All fine and dandy when it works.
It’s not just manufacturing plants that are encountering challenges. Our distributed food supply systems are finding challenges as well.
Well … this one is challenging. It is nice to live by the ocean or a river (provided the ocean or river behaves).
At one time it was probably just fine. But then along comes the unexpected.
Without getting too sensational—a meteor hiding behind Mars is about to strike—the unexpected happens. Pandemics. Sun doing some weird things. And, yes, meteors, asteroids or other celestial visitors.
We will save the harder to nail down stuff (like UFO’s) for another day.
Apparently, based on irrefutable imagery and reports from reliable sources, the alleged abductions in this image were successful.
We won’t speculate as to what the abductees are up to after their return to Planet Earth. They blend in well: shades of grey.
In the early days of computers, we figured we needed to go BIG. So we made mainframe computers—all the computer stuff got funneled into the big and humongous (we are ancient enough to know) mainframe computer.
This worked pretty well until we hit capacity ceilings and redundancy ceilings. Like, what happens when a BIG mainframe computer breaks?
Oops. So we went small.
We put gazillions of smaller computers in data centers. If one computer dies and goes to the computer graveyard, “So what?” is the prevailing theory. Besides, a gazillion smaller computers are way better than the big mainframe.
Now we can guzzle energy with digital currencies faster than most teens guzzling drinks and playing online games.
Details, details, details. Don’t bug me with details!
Now we can be REALLY BIG.
Being small is no fun.
All good if the fiber optic lines are working and the electrical systems are behaving.
Yes, sir, it’s a well-oiled machine!
But that’s a story for another day.
Sometimes we need to go small and not big.
Some folks call this humility.
Small is often a great foundation for big.
For centuries, folks made out okay with small.
Little villages looked after the aged. Neighbors were there to help new moms.
People didn’t travel far—they grew their own food.
They made do. They helped one another.
Children played in their neighborhoods with very few toys. Often, they made their own toys, sandcastles and forts to ward off imaginary pirates. Those were days of many unlocked doors—there weren’t any pirates to fend off.
People walked a lot to go places.
Together, they sat by campfires or wood stoves as they sipped a coffee or glass of wine. They made “potluck dinners.” They sang together.
Life was simpler.
Yes, we discharged carbon (wood fires) when it got cold. But there were many things we didn’t need to use, and we often credited back towards our carbon footprint by other natural ways in a simpler agricultural life.
Simplicity saved a lot of fossil fuels.
So now the question forms: “What can we learn from the past, coupled with new things from innovation and creativity, that can help us out today?”
We know you hope we aren’t regressing to the era of the Missing Link, Lucy and n-dimensional time travel. Plus, trying to turn us all into farmers or off-gridders….
Bear with us as we create rough sketches.
They are only sketches and stories in the heart … but that’s where Reimagine starts.
You might build a better housing arrangement for the elderly and mix it up with different ages and lots of fun, crafts, old movies, an old-fashioned popcorn machine (with a real butter warmer) and farm animals and pets.
You might bring together a place where the disabled flourish alongside non-disabled individuals. Then you make things to better their life … and it becomes like a little village.
Oddly, it started off as a place for the aged and disabled and a viable replacement to government or private run facilities for the aged and disabled.
But it became a village despite its humanitarian roots.
Children played in the streets and brought their puppy dog to visit and play with the aged and the disabled person in the wheelchair.
Then we discovered that lonely people have more health problems.
We also figured out that having some FUN might help the very-official institutional models.
Then we noticed that Drug A caused Side Effect B. So we added Drug C to fix Side Effect B. But C and D are chemical cousins on and on it went.
We sprayed the ground with every modern concoction. We ate the food that came from very long distances. People grew sick and visit the doctors more. So we borrowed more money—from other countries—to prop up an overburdened health care system. Taxes inched upwards.
People worried and feared more. Anxiety visited them.
Then we paused.
Then we put up innovative greenhouses. They grew many organic foods on the grounds. We even had a root cellar!
We encouraged shared food preparation in a common area while someone in a clown suit got everyone laughing. It was date night for the Smiths, so they cooked at home that night and watched a movie.
The sick and lonely somehow improved. There were fewer ailments.
Nurses, worn out from a relentless onslaught of C-19 patients, missing PPE and just-too-much, were more than happy to have fewer ailments in the little village.
They even got a day off and a decent sleep.
A bunch of you made “almost a little village” and you called it Cohousing or an Intentional Community. You incorporated multiple ages and backgrounds. Organic and natural for almost everyone.
Except for Charlie—he just loves those cheese-stick-things with ranch-flavored chemical preservatives. Bacon-flavored runny cheese dip that has an expiry date in the year 3000? Mandatory.
That runny-cheese-stuff will probably survive the apocalypse.
But, hey, we like Charlie just the same. We all agree: “He’s one of us.”
Friends in the city near to you needed some extra food for the homeless. Their urban gardens just weren’t big enough. So they came out and helped in the little village and shared in the planting and harvesting.
From the common kitchen, they preserved food to help the homeless.
An engineer in the city group (Charlie’s brother) was just pure-genius at alternative energy. He figured some stuff out for the little village. In appreciation, the ladies at the little village cooked him a year’s supply of healthy frozen dinners for his freezer. He’s all smiles now, and the dinners get him through another night of math and electrical engineering as he guzzles his energy colas.
Then Charlie fell off a ladder and got banged up. Serious. He can’t work. He’s in a wheelchair for life unless something changes.
No worries, though, for Charlie. The village looks after him. The traveling nurse from the other village nearby checks up on him every week. Charlie and the nurse have something going on, though—hints of romance are in the air.
The little village made a place for Charlie’s brother and sister. They hung out with Charlie and life moved on. Charlie’s brother still is up late at night in the laboratory as he surfs the web.
They all hang out at the local onsite craft brewery for some R&R and to play some darts.
Once a week, Charlie’s brother goes into the city for meetings.
He’s always glad to get back to his true home in the little village.
Sometimes, folks that are causing “challenges” in an urban environment just need some useful redirection and purpose in life. Respect and genuine equality go a long way in building bridges.
They also seek fundamental needs in life (like friendship and dignity). Often, they are aware of the dark valley they are in. They wouldn’t mind something better if they have friends with them in it. Talk to them … befriend them and discover their humanity and value. Sometimes they are the ones with creative solutions!
We can, of course, shun them.
We can spend a boatload of tax dollars on social programs, low-cost housing and even additional policing.
But sometimes the root cause of the problems is not where one might assume.
Too often, we treat symptoms and not causes. We miss the root causes.
Sometimes, that which we think to be unworthy has value.
Sometimes, great value.
Just saying….
Yes, we are VERY concerned about Climate Change and the impacts on Community.
