Dear cj, Anyone have ideas for Susan? Please send to cj with copy to Susan, so she needn't wait for my posting schedule. I'm back in Wexford, gradually unpacking, reorganizing space, and reentering local culture. The file on TWA 800 is ready for posting, as soon as I have time to boil it down. Yours, Richard _______________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 Sender: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: cj#633> re: Is there a paradise plan? Richard, I've been "out of the loop" for around 8 months having contracted a job at a global telecommunications company (which I wrote you about at the time) and having an inside look at the "big, bad corporate culture". Things were going along fine. From an almost archaeological perspective, I've been a participant/observer within the culture... fascinated (and delighted) by the daily team work with people from other countries, observing the stalking for gossip/position/power by those who'd been there for many years, and enjoying the great cameraderie with my own team working on a substantive, systemic overhaul of the company's systems and business processes (which is likely to cause a massive culture change within the company). The $50K paycheck has been seductive, to say the least. I was beginning to believe that the myth of the corporate mentality was secondary to how nice these "real" people are and how they're just like me. After 8 months of contributing my labor, enthusiastic energy and creativity to this project and the understanding that I would probably be on the team through 1999-2000, I'm being downsized and my job will be parcelled out to internal departments to leverage existing resources. Already my "new" boss is subsuming ownership of my projects by signing her name as contact for them. I've become a "non-person"; I never existed and my creative energy has been sucked into their own performance achievements. Passages from "Das Capital" are swirling around my heart and soul. I cannot begin to describe the feeling of depersonalization, with the sense of being discardable and interchangable. My teammates philosophize it as a matter of common practice...it could happen to any of us: "you shouldn't take it personally". Bullshit; it IS personal and it affects my ability to pay my bills, to remain economically self supporting, forces me back out in the work jungle vying for another job in the corporate vortex. I am horrified and saddened by the numbed response to my fate by my boss. It's as though it's never occurred to anyone that companies exist to provide jobs for people. I'm getting clarity regarding my own addiction to the material lifestyle: the merry-go-round that traps us consumption addicts into soul-less, corporate clones-- endlessly reproducing our means of consumption and entrenchment. I'm convinced there's no "corporate conspiracy". We're simply trapped in this cultural trance, reinforced by Madison Ave pipedreams and a belief in a limited universe where only the greedy get the goodies. If I could just not care about material amenities, I could extracate myself from the entire scene...walk off into the sunset and move to a commune somewhere. But, I don't digest vegetarian well; I'm an Aquarius airhead--as far from an 'earth mother' as you can get; and I am hopelessly joined by the hip to my power computer and its ever expanding, expensive software, accessories and upgrades. Sad, isn't it. But, at least I still have my soul. And the difference between fair and unfair is indelibly etched in my consciousness. I just need to tap into the courage of my convictions to make a stand in the next half of my life. I've only made four payments on my '97 Honda...only 56 more to go ;-) (sigh). Do I chase another corporate position that allows me to make the payments, or sell the damn thing, pick up a servicable clunker and chuck the whole livestyle? I'm teetering on the brink, but I just turned 50 and am scared of growing old and penniless in a country that has no regard for its frail and elderly. I don't want to be warehoused in some babyshit yellow institution; I want to make a difference in my life and help bring the word "fair" back into our collective belief system. In focusing on the "alliance" movement, I notice my absorption in anger and rage at the corporate system. That rage and anger consume *me* as they stay in my own body and drain my personal energy. My spiritual principles suggest I focus on what I want; not what I don't want: that fighting the enemy only entrenches you in the problem, because that's all your consciousness is focused upon...and what you focus on expands with the spiritual attention you feed it. It's far better to disengage entirely: create the model you want and build from there and know that if you build it, the disenfranchised will follow as their souls long for something different. As in "12 step" principles for addiction recovery, community building has to come via attraction, not promotion...attracting ONLY those who have bottomed out from the addiction to the old system and are truly ready for something better...otherwise they bring the dis-ease or manipulation with them. So, in your travels...what *successful* intentional model communities have you heard about? I'd miss some great friends here in North Carolina were I to leave, but I want to build my life on something substantive, something oxymoronically, practical-utopian, something fair and loving to its participants. Many of the current intentional community models are still *dictatorial* about conforming to a particular lifestyle or class consciousness...and they attract middle class whites who are intellectual, like me...reproducing middle class values (which revert back to the old system from which they arose)...never fostering *real* change through radical diversity. Without a celebration of the unique individual, a deep longing for diversity, and a super-conscious desire to build something democratic and easily replicable...it all seems self-serving and temporary. Could we build one? The internet is a great spawning ground. I look forward to responses from you and your journal subscribers. Susan Across the planet, we're all one people...we just have different service providers. Macintosh forever ;-) ________________________________________________________________
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