Communes have always been a popular way to be in the company
of others. People want to have an
experience of community while working towards a common goal. At least in theory. Images from Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test are floating in my head: Ken Kesey
and his band of Merry Pranksters. Or
current trends in “urban gardens,” sharing this, sharing that…
These habitats have never really appealed to me. My immediate reaction is that I would
inevitably have to clean up after some poor soul (or a moocher) whose idea of
dwelling is moving through the rat maze of junk and garbage.
Even so—given the fact that I do not like the possibility
and a manifestation of self-imposed, affected unwashed-ness, I do find the
whole phenomenon fascinating. These
days, we are far too “green” to completely give ourselves to the hippie
mentality but the commune mentality lives on.
I happen to glance at an article in The Guardian describing a community of writers in New
York .
Apparently, in the words of the author, Brooklyn
has become a new mecca for the writerly kind.
You can catch a glimpse of Jhumpa Lahiri or Jennifer Egan buying
broccoli, or who knows, maybe even those pro-biotic concoctions that cure
constipation.
(Side Note: this is no way mean to imply that the above
mentioned writers or any other writers may actually be suffering from
constipation. This is the information I
am not privy to and gladly so. The only
person who seems to be publicly obsessed with his bowel movement is, without a
doubt, Richard Lewis. Still, I cannot
help it but picture writers buying organic foods, wheatgrass juice, while
getting a copy of Utne Reader at the
checkout, or maybe in their case, it would be a copy of Paris Review or Ploughshares,
as the checkout “guy” nods approvingly.
This, of course results in a Whole
Foods/Trader Joe soliloquy, which is no doubt done in existential silence:
“Standing at the checkout aisle/Is this a boy or a girl I ask/Not so
sure/Methinks it could be a fair lady but her voice is ever so deep/and her
bosom tied/but, no, wait, what do I see but…”—Ok, so it’s not a Shakespearean
sonnet, I am not a wordsmith).
Yes, man is a social animal.
We need to be with other people.
Writers also have that contradiction within their souls: desire to be
apart and utterly alone (the art of writing requires solitude) and a desire to
be with other writers. They want to be
understood, almost obsessively. But
being among other writers all the time?
Seems one-dimensional to me. The
less established writers are there too, presumably hoping to absorb by osmosis
the writerly disposition from the well-established ones.
So, communes these days are clean. But the principle remains the same: fear of
being alone. Being around people who
will never challenge your thinking lacks a certain level of spontaneity—the
spontaneity of seeing the stranger and not thinking of him as a stranger but as
your neighbor. Spontaneity is another
word for the present moment—the moment arises when the allusion and indication
of human existence and condition come together in a perfect, unified
fashion. The moment of an encounter—to
see a stranger and have an unspoken vision of his humanity, and a small glimpse
of his mystery.
However noble the intent, creating islands of one’s idea of
perfection is what exclusivity is all about.
In fact, it is almost Manichean.
We are the enlightened ones and you’re not, but you could be if you join
us. Utopia is just that, utopia. Eventually, it will start to break into
reality.
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