ChallengingRadicalCommunities

It's an obvious mark of merit that this blog is being messed with by some kind of online virus (or?), so that I cannot make a headline that is "normally spaced"! (And likely the counter is, as I said before, also suspect!) Perserverence!!

The following exchange took place within a community i've put much energy into over the long haul of more than 15 years (not really that much, but for me it is!). i've taken care to not name the actual community or the actual people involved, in order to possibly protect them.


Lovely man, you spoke:
Sadly, in the past few years B was drinking heavily and started displaying terrible hygiene. That and disruptive drunken behavior, plus an expectation of being financially supported by whatever community he ventured into, led to his being thrown out of not only Z & WC but SMS as well.
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i happen to see that the tendency to reduce people's wholesale rebellion (from "normal" society) down to symptoms like "drunken behavior" is wrong-headed, and in the long run, certain to disasterously limit first our beliefs about *what is possible* with each other, and second, to find ourselves becoming just as superficial as, say, mainline Gay politics.

i prefer instead to see *behind* otherwise "hot-button"-like behaviors and delve into the *more radical* picture in which we're largely programmed (via our oft "good educations") not to see.

For instance, what exactly does "terrible hygiene" mean? To a "well adjusted 'member of society'" such is "obvious"...since we're pretty much all pushed to think in this way. To someone in various way rebelling from those norms, such is not patently a "bad thing" nor a "red flag". For those whom are homeless, there is an actual *language* behind such actions/inactions. And part of this language, this wisdom, is the realization that One Doesn't Have To Take A Bath Every Day, nor even every week, and still be rather healthy. In fact, as is represented still in not-fully-"developed" places like Africa, there is actually still a way of seeing where smelling commercial is STINKY and smelling natural is GREAT! (i happen to be one of the latter, surprise surprise, whom can revel enthusiastically in the "STANKY" smell of STINKY socks and shoes of those guys i'm most enamored with! (So there! :})

As for "disruptive behavior"...if you don't know it by now, i'm an advocate of exploring and experimenting with oft *forgotten* strategies of ways we may radically INSPIRE such so-called "disruption", WHENEVER such truths crop up. Because we see that people often "disrupt" the worst (especially when "discrediting" themselves "socially) for reasons of authenticity, okay?!

So i wanna develope strategies for figuring out *mutually beneficial outcomes*, and *art* an *"ugly swan"* (whom each of us defines individually!) towards ways of being and seeing which BRING BACK SURPRISING humanity to our heavily-tested projects!!!

So, J, i'm not meaning to chide you; i just think that like so many today, you're *strategically challenged*...not to render invalid your wisdom gained over so many years of dedicated service!!! Quite the contrary!

As for the alleged *expectation* (?? he articulated this? In which context??) that our fellow humans sometimes dare to have of being financially dependent (?), i have to ask, again, in what context? And, is there ABSOLUTELY no way that something could be worked out??? (Especially if we could inspire some way of such folks gifting back!!!)


J, you said:
It was not the fault of any of these sanctuaries, they are not places to be, just because one is homeless, neither are they psychiatric wards.
There was no way for these communities to provide whatever B needed to survive in this tough cold world.
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Another blindspot in which i say we are being tooled into believing in, this idea that sanctuary *is not* this or that category. They do aspire to be *community* though! And *family* in place of those families we find ourselves isolated from. Is this not so? That we categorically think in terms of labeling certain *more radical* behavior than we ourselves dare as somehow only this or That, is in my view, yet another mistake in which we'll better understand in the long term.

i do hear you, i think, tho, in feeling frustrated by these kinds of challengers. After all, your experience of faedom has been far from the ideals you may wish for (so also is my experience!). Yet we ought not to shrink away from such realities; we ought to radically explore alternatives which ain't readily found in our "good educations"! Say, a little studying up on Tlingit traditions of the indigenous NW coast!

A future scenario
This generation of 40-something guys has become elderly. We are facing the realities of the Pressing Unknown (after life); many of us cannot handle it. We have put long long hours into our projects, all with *hopes* of continuing on for as long as humanly possible; hopefully even experiencing a semblance of what has been done for JB (a luminary). But, with such mind-set and believed lack of resources, the "cold, hard world" will slap us in the face, and we will submit to finding ourselves in a Old Folks institution with values quite in opposite to what we have worked for.

Do we truly want to bring this upon ourselves?

J spoke:
The cause of B's death is believed to be an accidental fire in his homeless camp, late at night. Likely B had been drinking earlier, and sleeping so heavily, he didn't wake up until it was too late.
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Understand that many homeless people drink for warmth. When one is drunk they no longer feel so cold. It is a *tactic* in the context of this "cold, hard world" that so many are subordinating their creative wills to!

J said:
People with a lifetime of severe emotional and psychological problems, don't get better just because they are staying in the country with loving supportive people.
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Again, and finally, we have GOT TO SEE the value of looking behind these beliefs in which we are collectively led to think within! "A lifetime of severe...problems" REALLY MEANS a spirit who WOULD NOT GO QUIETLY into his domestication! He, like thousands of other homeless folks see the emptiness of "normal" life and want to escape it. So they improvise alternatives in their self-educated methodology; where mistakes are rampant simply because, as homeless people, the state works overtime to keep them (as with all autonomous-leaning folks) off-balance and for one, unable to learn from elders and others whom have been where they have been and found ways to thrive! i know because i myself am similar! (tho not *yet* as isolated as he!)

J said:
B has a loving brother in North Hollywood, who wanted to provide for B and take care of him. B spoke about his good relationship with his brother, but felt he would be giving up his freedom if he took help from his brother.
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What does this really mean, J? On the surface, we get the picture that a loving brother wanted to help. Yet B didn't want to give up his freedom. So, loving in some ways, but likely as rigid as "most people" are duped into becoming in "normal" society. i guess you know his brother, so i have to ask, WOULD YOU live with him?

All i'm trying to get at is that homeless folks have often seen the "worst" and have lived to tell about it. The more seasoned of them stick with such lifestyle because they feel muchmore alive!

On the other hand, from time to time homeless folks need and want a respite, a rest from living so on the edge. What if we could work things out with such folks, while avoiding the temptation to patronize them (with our "holier than thou" "good educations"), and instead work and play form the standpoint of OUR COMMONALITIES?!!!

Look, i have worked with and known homeless folks and other RAUCOUS individuals (and just came back from hitch-hiking for about 50 days here in the u.s.!) and this is where i'm still coming from. Granted, i haven't *lived in* fae community over the longterm...but that's another story. So i'm not a naive idealist, here! i've lived in rooming houses full of angry drinkers (and didn't like it at all, whether they were violent or just telling you the same thing over and over every 5 minutes...), but at those times i hadn't yet given myself permission to *think outside the box* in radical solidarities with my fellow human beings!

Join me, won't you J and others, in exploring some of these ideas at least, okay?! Whether at WC or when you come by to visit here in PDX. Let's challenge each other!!!!