Freud again: the strongest urge to join a small community (200 or less). think about it. those old groups had to hunt and graze. no land supplied a large amount of fodder. besides, should the ensemble grow larger, some people start thinking they're better than others!
my thoughts on the subject revived while taking pictures of this co-housing's fifteenth milestone celebration. www.pbase.com/wwp/circle . and remembering those places i'd been where for a moment people unified in a common endeavor. early in the seventies, all those young lookouts drove once a week for hours to get-together, roast corn, and sing songs. here's a piece of one i wrote:
I like to lay around in the sun,
even if my work doesn't get done,
sip my beer through a straw,
i even eat my beefsteaks raw.
Lethargy, lethargy,
good old fashioned lethargy.
not great literature, but fun at the time. (lyrics have to be loose to allow music to enter in.). and it probably fit those twenty-somethings back from the peace corps, or just out of college, waiting for life to begin. alas, that did happen. they drifted apart with the wind into babies and houses and substantial careers.
at the university of california santa cruz, one particular class held together by theater, dance and music. graduation and they headed for seattle and new york, fortune and fame.
or the sixties expatriates in lindos on the island rhodes, drinking kos wine, making love, dancing. mail shouted out at the post-office. ROBIN QUEST. JUNIOR MOTTA. HEATHER GORP. ah, but we all grew tired of too much beauty. i headed for a dark apartment in berlin. so much for swimming naked while the phosphorescence flashed around us.
pieter bruegel captured it with his icarus crashing into the sea, everyone oblivious and working at their everyday tasks. without even knowing it we find a home only to leave it not much later, our wings melted by the sun.
