by James | Jan 4, 2012 | Exploration I
What is a community? What is it that creates ‘community’ there is a clear difficulty in definition. What is the connection between an Amish community and an online community of photographers or between a village or a city.
- Can a community be built on a variety of conflicting viewpoints or must there be some unifying undertow?
- What is the community that would help unify people looking to help the next generation?
- What philosophy could unify a thousand opinions on the best actions to take?
- What are we trying to achieve?
- Why is it important?
- Who will become members?
- Where will the community exist?
- How will it be organized or administrated?
In fact the question should be distilled further to the following; who, what, where, when, why and how.
by James | Jan 3, 2012 | Exploration I
Physical health, nutrition and exercise within the community is mandatory to all able bodied members. Handicapped individuals or those with physical conditions that stop them from exercising will still attempt to do the minimum possible in their situation. For example someone in a wheelchair unable to exercise his legs can still do a vigorous upper-body workout and use electric stimulus to work his lower body.
Someone with a heart condition can still improve their flexibility and posture through meditation and tai chi.
Nutrition should be at the core of the menus produced by the kitchens who ensures that the necessary quantity of minerals, vitamins and sustenance is given out to everybody; taking into account differences in age, exercise, schedule and maybe even metabolism.
There is also the question of care in case of allergies to certain foods, dietary choices and illnesses that affect diets that all must be catered for.
by James | Jan 2, 2012 | Exploration I
The constant support and compassion of your peers, constant striving to improve both yourself and the constant attempt to ameliorate the world we are in are the fundamental cornerstones the community should be built on. Introspection and action should be balanced like standing on a tightrope an equilibrium must be maintained or we risk becoming too insular, not doing more to help society at large or not living up to our potential.
by James | Jan 1, 2012 | Exploration I
Accommodation for members will depend on the economic and space constraints of the given community; their prosperity, the number of members and the necessary area required for research learning and study. As the community will initially be small and potentially low in all the above there might be a period of dormitory sharing for all members
The optimal solution is that each fully-initiated lifetime member or paying invited transitory should have their own space within the community, This need only only need be large enough for a desk a rolled out futon, a chair, storage for clothes and shelving for books. A built in wardrobe with sufficient space for the futon would be an optimal solution to create more space during the day.
by James | Dec 31, 2011 | Exploration I
There should be a regular cycle of events that happen every day. This daily routine should be something similar to what follows;
- Before sunrise or around 6am wake up call
- Meditation for 20-30 minutes (with longer periods on rest days)
- Food – Breakfast prepared by people not exercising that morning
- Work commences
- Work will encompass many areas: Study, research, development and various other activities that clear demarcation
- Food will be regularly distributed as smaller snacks as opposed to larger meals
- Every hour or so there should be mandatory breaks and a cycle of different work or study there should also a break of reasonable length around the centre of the day.
- Work and relaxation should occur in specific areas each one specialized to help build a specific response (motivation, energy, relaxation, contemplation etc.) when one enters it.
- The working day ends with an hour of personal time
- Each evening will have different organized events by members
- Personal artistic development and artisan skills
- Lectures, dialogues, debates, seminars, meditation, martial arts, yoga, programming, music. This undoubtedly needs more clarity and explanation and will no doubt change as the number of members change.
- Dinner will not be as a traditional dinner as regular snacks will occur throughout the day instead it will be a social event with dialogues and discussions to create more connectivity between members of the community. This should last for at least an hour with regular table shifts to encourage a constant churn of ideas.
- Finally there is secondary meditation for the community
- The day ends and people are free to;
- return to their rooms / dormitory.
- do what they want (go out, surf internet, play games etc).
