A man full of grit when the job requires it, but a roman­tic who strate­gi­cally leaves flow­ers for no occa­sion, or plans a spe­cial evening; some­one solid, depend­able; a man who can “drive” both a mini-van and a road­ster con­vert­ible; a tough nego­tia­tor, but some­one who pos­sesses innate, effort­less kind­ness; has good taste in food/wines, but sel­dom brags and does not con­de­scend; leads an active life; spon­ta­neous and a man who enjoys travel off the beaten path but who still vis­its rel­a­tives at Hol­i­days; a man who can set and achieve goals but does not let his goals con­sume him; as a lover, won­der­fully strong, ten­der and affec­tion­ate, who knows the man’s great­est plea­sure is her plea­sure. Ulti­mately, some­one who lis­tens to her when he is tired at the end of the day.

Who am I look­ing for? Some­one that will be hon­est, reflec­tive and full of muses; she is a reader; active and com­fort­able in her phys­i­cal and emo­tional pur­suits. She will pair her nat­ural affec­tion for chil­dren and ani­mals and her sen­ti­ment for all life with ratio­nal­ity and wit. She will feel the earth’s energy in the small­est things: a leaf falling at her feet or a snowflake on her lapel. She will hold hands freely with me and touch my shoul­der often. When she argues with me, she will use the word “we” and not “me.” She will find energy in the solice of the moun­tain and in city lights.

Eman­ci­pate your­selves from men­tal slav­ery; None but our­selves can free our minds. — Bob Mar­ley, Redemp­tion Song

When I gaze across “the big pond” in my imag­i­na­tion, I see a vast land full of promise and poten­tial. A few hun­dred years ago it was pop­u­lated with a coura­geous, adven­tur­ous, free-spirited peo­ple, who have now become fairly depen­dent and com­pla­cent. In a sense, many of them have vol­un­tar­ily accepted servitude.

This seems a bit harsh but think of those pio­neers who seized the oppor­tu­nity to travel across the coun­try by wagon, car­ry­ing only the essen­tials, not really know­ing what they would face, and mak­ing do and using their hands, their minds, and what­ever was around them to build new lives full of free­dom and happiness.

Now look at the state of affairs, with so much poverty, suf­fer­ing, peo­ple chained to jobs they don’t like by credit card and mort­gage debts, mean­while watch­ing what lit­tle they do have worth less and less each day.

They may claim to be free but they are in servi­tude to a job that gives them money so they can buy goods and ser­vices made and pro­vided by oth­ers, that sup­ply their basic needs — food, cloth­ing, shel­ter, health care, water, power [elec­tric­ity, fuel, etc.], and then pay taxes to those who pro­vide the rest — ser­vices and infra­struc­ture, mil­i­tary, etc.

They’ve been led to believe that they NEED credit to sur­vive, then been made slaves to the credit com­pa­nies. Col­lege grad­u­ates are flooded with credit offers; doc­tors leave med­ical school with $500,000 debt or more.

So…it’s far more than know­ing the boat is going to sink and decid­ing to aban­don ship. It’s under­stand­ing that, by decid­ing to walk away from servi­tude, you can bring the best of what we have cre­ated as a soci­ety with you, and walk towards the Amer­i­can Dream, not away from it. Towards life, lib­erty and (the pur­suit of) happiness.

What really makes us happy? It’s all those things that Robert F. Kennedy pointed out were not a part of the GNP, all those things that make life worth liv­ing: “the health of our chil­dren, the qual­ity of their edu­ca­tion or the joy of their play… the beauty of our poetry…the strength of our mar­riages, the intel­li­gence of our pub­lic debate or the integrity of our pub­lic officials…our wit…our courage…our wisdom…our learning…our compassion…our devo­tion to our country.”

There is also what will be gained by being pre­pared for what­ever may hap­pen — per­sonal sat­is­fac­tion, car­ing about and for oth­ers, a sense of pur­pose, a thor­ough enjoy­ment of life, the sense of being in con­trol of our lives and capa­ble of car­ing for our fam­i­lies’ needs, and much more…

“It is our task — our essen­tial, cen­tral, cru­cial task — to trans­form our­selves from mere social crea­tures into com­mu­nity crea­tures. It is the only way human evo­lu­tion will be able to pro­ceed.” — Scott Peck
There is no one def­i­n­i­tion for “com­mu­nity.” There are local, regional, state, national, and world-wide def­i­n­i­tions; there is the “com­mu­nity of man,” the inter­net com­mu­nity, and so on…

Com­mu­nity there­fore is no longer defined solely by the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment that a group of peo­ple share. All the pieces that come together to define a com­mu­nity will take on new mean­ings as well.

Like a Venn dia­gram, all these parts will over­lap in all sorts of ways.

The fun­da­men­tal char­ac­ter of the new com­mu­nity will still con­sist of the inter­ac­tion of intent, beliefs, fears, needs, avail­able resources, pref­er­ences, and so on, but all will be re-examined.

Per­haps the under­ly­ing beliefs will be sim­ply that the old ones we based our com­mu­ni­ties on are no longer believ­able; our inten­tions will be to come together as self-sufficient indi­vid­u­als and com­bine our tal­ents and intel­lec­tual resources for mutual ben­e­fit and stim­u­la­tion; our fears will be that we are run­ning out of time and that oth­ers may try to take what we are able to pro­duce for our­selves; our needs will be “back to the basics” — food, cloth­ing, shel­ter, com­fort, and free­dom of expres­sion; and the most valu­able resources will be not only what ful­fills those needs, but also our human resources – our minds, imag­i­na­tions, cre­ativ­ity, and the level play­ing field upon which they meet.

And who is the “we” in this com­mu­nity? This is the most excit­ing fac­tor in the entire equa­tion. Thanks to the inter­net, any­one in the world can par­tic­i­pate on the level of idea exchange, curios­ity, thirst for knowl­edge, avail­able resources, etc. The only lim­i­ta­tion to what this com­mu­nity can be, is our imaginations.

Imag­ine for a moment, grand­par­ents rais­ing grand­chil­dren. Grand­par­ents who aren’t con­cerned about being sexy or hook­ing up with some­one. Grand­par­ents who are whole peo­ple, suf­fi­cient unto them­selves in all ways.

Self-sufficient in the ways we com­monly under­stand it, but with a new twist. Yes, these mature adults have been there and done it, have taken care of their own needs and exude self-confidence. Per­haps now they can’t carry the same loads or work as long and hard as pre­vi­ously, but they’ve walked their talk.

Read the rest of Chil­dren Learn­ing Maturity

Like Alice falling down that rab­bit hole or step­ping through the Look­ing Glass, one moment I’m in this real­ity and in another moment I’m some­where alto­gether dif­fer­ent. All it is, is a change of per­spec­tive. I don’t usu­ally do well with such a dra­matic change, but like the White Rab­bit, I’m wor­ried that I’m late. Is it too late to go back the other way, out of the Look­ing Glass?

Maybe it’s time to start writ­ing a new story. If I’m the author of my life, can’t I write myself out of Won­der­land and into a whole new landscape?

Read the rest of The Mad Tea Party