VeganVillage USA

[Guest guest]

VeganVillage USA

Questions posed so far:

 

" how much do you want to spend on your house? "

" what areas of the country do you want to live in? "

" what values do you want everyone to share? "

" what rules do you require that others follow? "

" what pets or children do you want to allow? "

" how much do you want to spread the word of veganism to others as

part of a community weekly witnessing project? "

 

Send me all the information, packaged into one concise e-mail, and I'll blog

this.

15,0000 veggie readers may need to float this idea where they are.

Maynard S. Clark Maynard.Clark

http://Maynard.Clark.GooglePages.com - Links ALL my blogs and photo sites

" Making connections for plant-based diets "

Vegetarian Resource Center (since 1993)

P. O. Box 38-1068; Cambridge, MA 02238-1068 USA

617-571-4794 (cell) Maynard

 

" VeganMania " <vegan.mania wrote:

SeniorVeg is for exchanging ideas. The meeting at the AR conference

in Orlando will be more specific to actually starting VeganVillage. Some of us

are ready to sell our homes and move now. We just need to decide where. For

many who aren't ready to move yet, we'll leave the light on.

-

Maynard S. Clark

Maynard.Clark

Thursday, December 28, 2006 5:30 PM

[seniorVeg] Can we get along together?: Needs of Aging Vegetarians

 

 

Well, postives and negatives are two sides of one direction. I'm glad I

provoked so much thoughtful comment from so many folks in what, before Maida's

intro, seems to have been a quiet list.

I think that Kim's preliminary set of questions is very good: thoughtful,

promising, bright, and numerous (not to be discounted in the least!).

I think that Kim's six (6) questions are great starters. Certainly each of us

needs to mull over each of them.

In my experience, active lists DO run the risk of upsetting some folks. Let's

agree with one another (and with ourselves) not to get too upset with what any

of us shares with the others on this list. As we become more active in sharing,

a great volume of reading material will be generated. Possibly some important

nuances will be missed in rushing and/or skimming.

I still think that my comments stand about wanting to live well into old age

(as vegetarians). Having property makes life better, but we have to be well to

enjoy our abode or our colleagues, or to continue our activism.

I don't think that health habits is everything, but the bodily base precedes

everything else. That's SO easy for us to forget when we're given to

assumptions about ENJOYING our experiences.

In " floating the ideas to other vegetarians " , I'm suggesting that we all

become active in talking up these ideas to our geographical and internet

colleagues NOT on this list/these lists.

And no one's saying that authentic living is unimportant. But getting clarity

on issues, values, beliefs, and future behavior may need to be intentionally

achieved, not merely assumed on the basis of OUR OWN expectatoins. The communal

movements of the 60s and 70s (read Margaret Mead's epochal works on this) gives

us more than enough food for thought about the problems inherent in intentional

communities.

Finally, or I'd go on far too long, NPR recently carried an hour on retirement

and cohousing, on 12/27 - about seniors, cohousing, and more:

I can't find the link, but this one from 12/13/2005, is about senior finances.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5051759

Talk of the Nation, December 13, 2005 · Americans are living longer and

healthier lives -- but their nest eggs could be in better shape. Financial

planners offer advice on financial planning.

Guests:

Sophie Beckman, financial planner, AG Edwards

Ben Stein, spokesperson for the National Retirement Planning Coalition

Oh, and I didn't think that this e-mail list was primarily about developing

common housing, but perhaps some folks picked up that idea from the current

discussion. I'm not sure. But this is an area where I've done a fair about of

footwork in the following areas, none of it yielding anything substantial, to

date:

Spoken with lawyers, investors, and builders about the various prospect types

for such shared living (not only co-housing ventures, but perhaps shared

apartments as condos, common renters in an externall-owned facility, etc.),

subgroups within a larger group (e.g. religious group owned, etc., with

vegetarian special interest networks within it; ownership by social or political

networks, e.g. perhaps - for the sake of discussion - a gropu like MoveOn.org

owns a set of apartment buildings into which folks " buy " and leave escrow assets

to organization, but live in affinity groups, congregating or segregating by

common values and interests, etc.).

An idea I began with was to get nonprofit financial investors or ocntributors

to build a facility that would house aging vegetarians, perhaps an assisted

living facility, then to build cohousing around that assisted living center so

that 90-ish and centenarian vegetarians could migrate into the assisted living

facility as needed, selling their real estate assets as they vacate them. Then

perhaps the " mini-city " could unfold with resources and residences for middle

aged and younger families and subgroups or individuals.

As municipalities develop (Dr. David Weseloh of West Texas and the VML or

VeGAN mailin glist) used to dream of developing " Vegan, Texas " as a trailer park

that would eventually grow larger and mandate a post office, city hall, some

formal schooling, etc. He's made and lost money in large scale real estate

ventures and has much to offer discussions in this direction.

Foundations could explore something experimental in helping to " seed "

vegetarian cohousing. However, self-directed projects without continuity beyond

individuals to TODAY (may kinda) want to do this have not, historically, done

very well. So, if there's seriousness enough to make something like this go

ahead and matter for 30-40 years forward, perhaps we need to measure, not merely

twice, but thrice before cutting.

This venue (an e-mail list) may be good for generating discussion; it's hardly

a decision-gathering medium. However, I'm glad that the thought of collective

outreach or " witnessing " gets in there. I doubt we'd get much done unless we

are all VERY MUCH on the same page with one another, not merely an aggregate

sharing little except the bare outline of a meatless diet.

Maynard

 

pourlesanimeux <pourlesanimeux wrote:

I've replied within the body of Maynard's post. To be certain who is

who: his comments have the '>' in front of them, and I've also

written my name in front of my replies. It just seemed to be better

to address his points individually and directly after his quotes. I

have snipped some of his post if I had no direct reply.

 

SeniorVeg , " Maynard S. Clark "

<MaynardClark wrote:

>

 

> Most important is long-term health, that everything inside

functions, and that we don't practice habits that destroy our bodies

and minds (smoking, drinking, overeating, indolence, lack of sleep,

etc.).

 

Kim: while I agree that these may be important aspects of health,

they are not necessarily all of concern to me personally in

community. For instance, I'm not going to be a part of some

intervention because a member of our community has decided he/she

needs only 4 hours of sleep whereas someone else thinks we must have

rules that everyone sleep 8 hours.

 

Am I taking your words too literally? I don't know. You do say this

is " most important " , and we ARE talking about what we want to see in

community, right, not individual lifestyle preferences?

 

>

> So we need money in the bank. That's not accomplished by talking

with other vegetarians; that's realized by careful financial

planning from our youth up. Let's say that we're successful

engineers or other professionals; the money we make and the

education we achieved during our earlier years should put us in good

stead.

 

Kim: Yes, it should. But, if everyone is NOT an engineer

or " professional " , why does it matter? I was under the impression

this group is talking about everyone financing their own home and

being completely responsible for their own financial issues.

 

>

> Now let's say that we're financially successful vegetarians and

some poor vegetarians come along and want US to fund some retirement

village for vegetarians where there are no entry requirements other

than being vegetarians.

 

Kim: I've not ever heard anyone say a few are financing this so

others can live in it. Not everyone who makes less than

the " financially successful " (what IS that amount, btw?) wants

others to provide for them.

 

>>What right-thinking vegetarian of means would want to invest her

or his skillfully acquired means in putting together an expensive

project, one that up front is VERY risky financially, when we don't

even do background checks or values research on the persons

applying, where we're more interested in filling the cohousing

arrangement with a professing vegetarian than in finding suitable

neighbors?

 

Kim: okay, I'm mulling over the idea of a background check and

values research. It's certainly valid to want to know who we're

living with...otoh, I don't foresee that many child molestors, e.g.,

are going to get excited over the prospect of buying into a

vegetarian community for seniors. Even those wanting to scam seniors

out of money are more often doing a " scam and run " not a " Scam and

live next to you " thing.

Certainly, though, I don't doubt that there are scammers everywhere,

and we need to be just AS wary of them as we would living in a

subdivision. I'm not sure I can agree we need to be MORE concerned

about it here.

 

As for values research, I've definitely met plenty of vegetarians

who don't share my interests or approach to others.

I don't know many vegetarians who share my love of extreme physical

pursuits. So, my life hasn't been limited to being with vegetarians

when I do what I like to do...but I don't require that other

vegetarians share my hobbies. Otoh, I don't know many vegetarians

who have vastly different values, incl. the Hindu's who lived next

door to me in Georgia.

 

As for differences in our approach to non-veg people, I've had a

vegan casual friend for years who I would never again invite to a

social function that isn't 100% vegan because she's such an avid

activist that she alienates almost everyone she meets. We were

quietly asked to leave a party years ago. It was, somewhat

ironically, an environmental group's annual party. Despite being

the youngest and probably best-looking person there, people were

getting up from tables to get away from her (incl. me). She always

thought she was pleasant and she did smile as she gave her speeches,

but she was, plain and simple, preachy and controlling.

 

> OK, so WE think we're going to share great vegetarian recipes in

our retirement.

 

Kim: I wasn't thinking at all about this. And I don't have any

recipes to share. This is another good thing to find out when we

poll for interests and/or requirements.

 

> Float the ideas among aging vegetarians? Perhaps.

 

Kim: Is that not why we're all here....you included?

 

> Well, I'd say that those who've tried to build local vegetarian

organizations have SOME insight, but the challenge of building

something that owns property collectively

 

Kim: hmmm...once again, I may have misunderstood the intent of the

group, which was, I thought, to buy seperate properties. Just as

with co-housing projects everywhere, if someone doesn't like where

they live, or decide they want to live somewhere else, they sell

their house/condo/whatever within the community and move. The

property is not collectively owned, except perhaps for a common

space paid for by monthly dues. The money EVERYone in the community

puts into such a space is not money that will be returned to anyone,

whether they stay or go. It's just like any other condo community

that has fees for landscaping maintenance, the pool or tennis

courts, etc.

 

> Oh, and though I like pets, not every vegetarian likes pets,

particularly carnivorous animals (like -- psst, " cats " ).

 

Kim: And someone else might have an irrational fear of frogs or

spiders or bats, but so what? That doesn't give anyone a right to

spray your yard with poison or come in to your yard to kill the

frogs in your pond.

Or maybe someone in the community hates Jews/hispanics/Asians,etc,

or maybe they hate Brussel sprouts though they've never tried them.

But, if those people or those items are in your house or your yard,

it's your house and your life, and it doesn't affect anyone else as

long as you don't send them over to others homes or force feed the

brussel sprouts to anyone.

 

If there's something or someone inside my house about which or

whom you know nothing, but are still determined to dislike them,

it's your prerogative, but I don't find such an attitude to be

conducive to living in community. I think a dislike of cats is

particularly irrelevant since they - and a few other pets - are the

very few members of community who you would never see unless you're

invited to someone's home or are peering into their windows.

 

> So staying healthy is more than an afterthought, more than an

instruments. How about the social influence we can now share with

one another to keep one another healthy so we CAN survive into

seniority?

 

Kim: Social influence is something I do by walking the walk. I've

been a vegetarian for over 30 years, so I've had plenty of

opportunity to meet people who aren't vegetarian and to hear their

thoughts and to express my own. However, I express my thoughts

selectively and rarely. It's certainly not out of any desire to be

polite or to avoid making waves. However, I find that non-

vegetarians are often quite defensive, and apparently must meet

plenty of veg's who they think are controlling or preachy because

they always expect a speech from me. The speech they get is more

about how I'm at peace with the way I eat and live, and if they want

to have a reasonable and intelligent discussion about it, then I'll

be happy to oblige, but if they're just looking for an argument they

can win, I'm not interested. It usually doesn't go beyond that.

 

In more distant years, I couldn't win arguments on the subject

because people get focused on the " winning " , and make things up or

some even start doing the radio talk show host thing and just become

deliberately insulting. There's no point, imo, in engaging people

who're that defensive. They aren't interested in logic or discussion.

 

No one wants to be preached to...whether it's someone telling you

why you must love their god, or how you must live your life in order

to get to their heaven, or how you must eat.

I'd rather have people see how my own life is filled with joy and

activity than to tell them how or why they must live or think the

same way.

If there is a certain level of activism that Maida and others want

from everyone in order to qualify to be in the community, then

that's certainly a good thing to bring up soon.

 

In fact, I think this does bring up valid issues, which is why I hope to see

polls asking everyone what is important to them in community. Questions like:

 

" how much do you want to spend on your house? "

" what areas of the country do you want to live in? "

" what values do you want everyone to share? "

" what rules do you require that others follow? "

" what pets or children do you want to allow? "

" how much do you want to spread the word of veganism to others as

part of a community weekly witnessing project? "

 

 

 

 

.