Adulting For Three: "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction."

Back when I was a student at Lane Community College I took a Writing 122 class, from a professor, who is the sister Oregon's former Governor (it was super cool to me to find out that she had helped write former Governor Kitzhaber's speeches during his 1995 campaign)-- and out of all of my college experiences from 2009/2010 her class still remains to be one of my better experiences. Her first assignment for the class, outside of daily readings, and short essay questions was writing a paper on any subject using rhetoric essay.

At the time, I was missing Jess and Ian and the kids, desperately-- so, I wrote my paper on communal living, excluding my own personal experiences. Here's the essay, and the start of me sharing some of the hard(er), fun, and amazing experience I had while living with my chosen family in a series of blog entries I wanna call Adulting For Three.

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” –Act 4:32-35

Often, when one thinks of communal living images of free love and psychedelic drugs come to mind. It is thought that communes are something that became extinct with the sixties and seventies. However, many people live communally today in co-ops, eco-villages, co-housing groups, intentional communities, and group marriages. Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times wrote that, contrary to popular misconceptions, "Most communes of the 90's are not free-love refuges for flower children, but well-ordered, financially solvent cooperatives where pragmatics, not psychedelics, rule the day."

Community living is designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork focusing on a common goal; members typically hold common spiritual, social and political views. The purpose of communal living may vary for some; however one commonality is living simply; sharing resources and responsibilities, embracing sustainable life-styles and celebrating family-based ideology. Living in such communities has many advantages to individuals and the wider environment. By rejecting competitiveness and production, and replacing it with unity and cooperative work one is placing an emphasis on friendship and family instead of the need for material goods.

In many cultures, societies and religions there is a distant memory of when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state, one of perfect happiness and fulfillment. There was an instinctive harmony between man and nature. Men’s needs were few and desires were limited, both were satisfied by the abundance provided by nature. Accordingly, there were no motives for war or oppression, nor was there any need for hard and painful work—humans were simple and pious, and felt themselves close to the gods.

This Utopian-theory on life is the premise behind living simply, a lifestyle characterized by only consuming what is required to sustain life. E.F. Schumacher summarized it by saying, “any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” Communal ideology idealizes social unity and maintains that humanness only exists in intimate and collective life. In these small communities great emphasis is placed on providing a controlled and manipulated environment in which social life may be structured to create the perfect being. In other words, the belief of happiness in the present, or “heaven on earth” underlies the establishment of Utopian communities.

Moreover, communal living is an excellent choice for people who enjoy deep, intimate companionship. An intentional community can be looked at as a “chosen family,” in the respect that it is made up of people who came together intentionally based on commonalities other than biological (or adoptive) accident. Communal living is a remarkably viable means for enriching lives with interpersonal adventures and fun—it can supply a person with the best a family has to offer, a circle of connected, loving co-experiences with whom to share life.

There are practical advantages to communal living as well. Often expense-sharing groups can live more cheaply than a single person can. By sharing responsibilities one is free to experience life, for example traveling; there is always going to be others to water plants, take in mail, pay bills, and keep company to those who stay behind, and so on.

In conclusion, communal living is a social network, the sharing and maximizing of resources will improve greatly the quality of life of an individual as well as the healing of the planet; chances are there is always someone available to look over a final draft, to listen to a cool idea, to take a walk in the sunset with, to fall in love with, to learn and teach something to, and laugh with.

Communal living is a potent and powerful medium for free, creative, experimental, sustainable, ecological, and fulfilling way of life. By pooling together money, creativity, skills, assets, ideas and resources; and thereby supplying basic needs through communal energies, there are both an abundance of all things available, and an optimization in the efficiency of their use.