what are your worst experiences in a commune? i want to know because creating one one day is in my mind. i am curious to hear about some unbearable cases to know from people experiences what can go wrong..
well when my parents and I lived in our co-op they had a visitor once that went into a full blown psychotic breakdown and had to be escorted out. it was very scary as a young adult as we had a very very tight knit community and only had visitors that were pre screened and such.
that s why it is important when you create a commune to screen carefully the people you are associating with.. but we can never know somebody until times reveals it!i am a little frightened that all is starting very well in a commune and that after people are revealed and things are going wrong..i wonder how to escape that fate..thank you for your answer sagewise did you grow up in a commune and if yes what did it bring to you?
I never lived in a commune, but I worked with a co-op full of young people that lived in a hostel & surrounding apartment buildings. The worst thing that happened was when we let a spiritual seeker man stay with us and he had a history of mental illness. He disobeyed house rules, tagged his name on the walls and left drugs all over the place. Not only that, but he was very degrading and insulting to the womenfolk that worked there. Like, he was the kind of person that you want to make it all work, but in the end it was just brutal and disrespectful the way he was creating problems for everyone else and between people.
Having grown up in a commune (albiet down to 7 members now) most of the worst experiences involve alcohol. Several years ago we had a young guy staying with us. Anyways, the owners of one of the places we rent decided to throw his annual party and we were all invited. The party was going great, booze was flowing, and all of a sudden this young guy grabbed an axe and started swinging it at people (and not in a joking manner), fortunately no one was hurt and he was disarmed and sent home but the real icing on the cake was his mother calling and freaking out at us that he shouldn't have been allowed alcohol (neither the mother or him informed us of this previously). Another memorable incident is when i was quite young (7 ish) one of our guys (who is no longer with us) after our New Years eve party having him drive the commune's truck into the car with my sister and my mother and I in it. Needless to say that was the one time I've ever seen my dad hit a guy. And the list goes on ... What it boils down to for me is that don't expect people who come looking for a place to stay (despite all of their troubles) to really be able to act in the best interests of everybody else. Some do, but most don't.
alot of people want to live on a commune because they say they are sick of society ...a commune is a society of sorts and if you can't get along with people around you at home the odds are you won't be able to on a commune either ....
i will even say to live in a commune you must have more social skills than to live in the conventional society..for me a commune is not antisocial, but more social than the rest..you must have a need for deeper relationship, and a sort of social organization the outside world does not have..but i think this kind of dreams is attracting people that do not realize it, or will have to learn it.. people are the same everywhere, inside or outside a commune, we are all human.. maybe in a commune we are looking more at what we are and try to work on ourselves.. it is important to have a belief in a good human philosophy or religion to live in a commune, to have a morality that is human..and that is maybe what the outside world do not have..surely if i was living in a commune i don t know how much i will be able to put first the interest of the commune before my own..maybe that s why it is necessary to share a commun belief or commun vision to live together in that kind of structure..
I would love to have that "village feel" like people used to have, when people actually love and cared for their neighbours!
that village feel as you say is the feeling maybe to belong to a group, and in this group there are a few people you can sit down with and drink a cup of tea and and talk about anything.. me i want more than that: i want people around me with the same ideology; i mean interested by the alternative way of life, concerned by the planet,sharing the same ideas about how to treat the earth and the environment..this is much more than the village..i think in a commune you must share certains ideas..
