One Door Closes and Another Opens
Posted on Mar 25th, 2008
by 
asecondlifediary
asecondlifediary
LAST NIGHT WAS VERY DRAMATIC and signals an end to our plans to buy the island where we now live with our neighbours.
As we all know from John Lennon - "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans" and so, while I thought things were percolating along nicely for our big purchase, 'life' was about to jump up and bite me.
Cal (who has a wonderful blog on How To Save The World, which you can access here) and Max (who has joined our Intentional Community and is a member of a real life Intentional Community in Sweden - check out his blog here) had sent out a DRAFT Proposal Partnership Agreement and Prospectus to the other people who live on the island we currently 'rent'. This was several days ago, and to my knowledge none of our neighbours had contacted either Cal or Max to question anything in the proposals. I had expected that at some point, we would all meet and discuss how we would go about this land purchase; what each of us wanted from it etc.
Wrong!
I had approached one of our adjoining neighbours, Abbie, who hardly ever comes to the island, to see if (a) she was interested in coming on board with us in the land purchase; or (b) if she wasn't, and planned to sell her land at any point, would she consider selling it to us.
Estate Islands are usually divided up into 16 separate parcels. Our island 'ownership' was broken up into:
Cal & Mia - 3 parcels
Cinn & Dick - 4 parcels
Bella & Ringo - 3 parcels
Vincent - 2 parcels
Abbie - 3 parcels
Rachel - 1 parcel
Abbie said yes, she would be happy to sell because she had other land interests elsewhere and wanted to cut down on her holdings.
Cal and I planned to keep four of the parcels and then use the other two for Max OR another couple we knew who MIGHT have been planning to join us as part of the Intentional Community. But essentially, the six parcels would be dedicated to the community.
I was keen for the island residents to get together so we could discuss Cal and Max's proposals and I went to meet with Cinn and Dick about a possible meeting with everyone.
Before I knew it, I was being blasted with quite a tirade about how we were trying to take over the island and MAKING everyone go around naked and live in a cave! lol Which is quite a ludicrous suggestion, but may end up being the comment that we laugh about in the future.
Cal had provided a very comprehensive and detailed partnership agreement, detailing financial responsibilities etc., but there was nothing in there about MAKING anyone do anything and was very clearly marked DRAFT at the top.
One of the other sticking points appeared to be Max's comment in his Prospectus - "Buildings are not needed." (In Second Life, it doesn't rain, so there is no need for protection from the weather and no one can steal your property, so you can leave it out in the open).
The island as it is now, does not allow any business, and it also seems that Max's statement that, "... the only commerce that is appropriate is the selling of info materials to promote the spread of the message" was interpreted that we were going to MAKE everyone swear an oath of allegiance to some weird cult.
It dawned on me that our fellow island residents were getting more and more enraged as I struggled to understand just what it was that they were so agitated about.
"What message?!" demanded Dick. "We don't want to walk around naked and live in a cave!" "You can't have more than four parcels!" shouted Bella. "And you've pushed Abbie out!" "Don't act dumb! You're just trying to build up power so you can outvote us!" And similar comments in that vein.
It took awhile for the penny to drop for me - they were worried that we were positioning ourselves to take over and force them to live the way we thought everyone should live.
Second Life offers us the opportunity to create our ideal world.
For some people that is a life crammed full of stuff! Huge houses (in a place where it never rains and no one can steal from you); luxurious cars (in a place where you can tp wherever you want to go); boats (in a place where sailable water is a rarity); clothes; toys; activities; a Friends List a mile long; endless clubbing; sexual partners coming out the wing-wang; and the indulgence of our every desire.
Other people have a vision of paradise - of tropical rainforests; nature protected; animals gambolling, safe from predators; people in love and caring and true in their relationships with one another; and social justice is not just an idealistic notion.
Some, like the lovely Bella and Ringo, just want to have fun. They want to have all the things they don't have in First Life and use SL as a place of relaxation and merriment. I have no argument with that. We should all be free to use SL to have our dreams come true.
Others, like dear friends of mine Shava Suntzu and Tuna Oddfellow, and Sue Stonebender and Baron Grayson, use SL as a forum for their social justice work. Each to his or her own. And that's exacty what we want the Intentional Community to achieve - for everyone involved to be free to create their ideal world. I see this happening through conversations, political action, benevolence, love, fun, creativity and other ways I may not have even contemplated yet.
I just re-read Cal's DRAFT Proposed Partnership Agreement and the points that stand out to me are:
"I am committed to pioneering a lifestyle that will serve as an example of ecological sustainability ...
I will weigh the implications of my actions, continually striving to minimize my negative impact and increase my positive impact on the land and community.
I will participate in the creation of a physical and social structure and culture that will move us towards long-term sustainability and social equity."
What disappoints me more than anything is the fact that both documents were STARTING POINTS for group discussion and instead of our neighbours doing that - discussing their concerns with us, they appear to have speculated amongst themselves and came to a very unflattering conclusion about us! One that questioned our personal integrity.
As far as I'm concerned, Max made two comments which could have been seen as being dictatorial or unreasonable:
"Buildings are not needed" and "The only commerce that is appropriate is the selling of info materials to promote spread of the message."
I don't agree with these statements myself! Woman have an innate need for a shelter of some sort - we are just wired for safety and security and I do believe we see that in our home. As far as the commerce goes, I would have negotiated for a village style market place which could have a regular monthly event where others could bring goods to sell or exchange.
That's what a community is all about - negotiating what you want and compromising for the common good.
The diatribe served to show me two things - it highlighted a basic lack of trust (Dick accused us of being "underhanded") and a complete lack of conflict resolution skills.
Several times Dick had commented that whomever owned the island was 'god' and then immediately stated, "Well, I will buy the island in my name and you can all just pay me your share." My antennae had gone up from then, but I accepted that SOMEONE had to pony up their credit card to pay for the land but thought this issue (of who would actually have the island in their name), would be discussed when we all got together at a meeting to discuss these things.
(The trust issue relates to the fact that the island would officially 'belong' to whomever paid for it. It would be in their name. We would have to trust that Dick wouldn't, at some point, just tell us to piss off, and there would be nothing we could do about it - he was the owner / god). But trust went both ways ... Dick would have to trust us that we each would pay the monthly tier due on our share of the island).
The accusations that they had levelled at me/us of being underhanded and doing something sneaky, naturally spoke to our own trustworthiness and personal integrity, and obviously, they felt we were the ones who couldn't be trusted!
So ... okay, these people were not who we are meant to create our community with.
We will find those who are.
We are already on our way to doing that ... Maybe it will be you.
(Photo above: Our current parcel is at the top left hand side of the photo).
Access: Public
drama
May 2008