Living with vegans you're not actually related to...

[Guest guest]

vegan-network, " irene_lucy " <irene.lucy@n...> wrote:

>

> Why did that sound like hell for you?

You prefer animal eaters and

> smokers over non-smoking vegans do you?

 

i just prefer people in all their diversity and with all their

differences and inconsistancies. To be surrounded by a bunch of

earnest vegans being full-on, ethically superior and checking each

others' footwear the whole time doesn't appeal to me at all! And

IIRC it was proposed to be a non-drinking community as well :-(

(or maybe I just made that assumption...)

 

You would not have been

> invited unless you were a vegan and a non-smoker presumably. Which

> community was that anyway? Is it still in existence do you know?

 

It was about 4 or 5 years ago, so with my current life style and

commitments would have been totally impractical anyway, but the idea

seemed to be to buy some hotel in Torquay and set it up as a vegan

community... i'm not sure if the idea ever got off the ground...

 

> Sounds OK to me! Does it include families? Or was this before you

had

> a family?

> Anyway to be like family, I mean like extended family, really

close

> friends and neighbours, not necessarily living under the same

roof.

 

I've got an old copy of 'Diggers & Dreamers', the directory of

intentional communities which lists some vegan communities. This is

from 94-95, so which still exist I couldn't say. You can however get

an up to date D & D as it's updated every year or so...

 

You could also get in touch with radical Routes who would be able to

put you in touch with vegan communities no doubt...

 

Generally regarding communities I feel a bit like that episode of

The Good Life that was on the other day, where a couple of earnest

students wanted to move in with Tom & Barbara and turn their house

into a commune- in the end they had to turn round and say, look,

we've already got our community, the 2 of us... Tho in our case it

would be the six of us!

 

Furthermore, what makes The Good Life a funny TV program is the

dynamic between them and their neighbours with whom they have little

in common in terms of values and life styles... without them it

would be a boring program. And that's how I would feel if I lived

with a bunch of vegans all the time (though thinking about it, I

do!!). I like to go down the pub and socialise/argue with my

drinking, smoking, football supporting, omnivorous, car driving, Big

Brother watching, ethically inconsistent friends and work

colleagues.... and don't want to live my life totally surrounded by

people who agree with me and think the same as me... Anyone

for 'Stepford Vegans'???

 

> We would love some friendly vegans in the next few streets, that

> would be my ideal type of vegan community situation, not totally

> living on top of one another, sort of the middle ground, not

isolated

> and not oppressively in one another's faces either. How does that

> sound to you?

>

 

That doesn't sound too bad an idea. Lots of failed intentional

community projects seem to to point up the lesson that people need

private space/ personal property as well as a degree of shared

resources and tasks(which does make sense on many levels). I don't

mind staying in commune type places for a few days but wouldn't want

to live there. Many years ago I used to stay at a house in

Coggeshall, Essex which was an intentional community bound together

by the fact that they were all fans of Westham United! (I wasn't,

but used to along with them to the games if I was staying there! It

was wierd, instead of chanting 'Om Nama Shivaya' or whatever they'd

all occasionally burst into choruses of 'I'm forver blowing bubbles'

& 'You're gonna get your f****ing head kicked in!' (even tho there

was nobody actually there)!

They were all veggies as well, and I hasten to add that none of them

were actually violent at all, they were all very friendly and gentle

people... How did I get to meet such strange people? Years ago when

i used to work in an office one of them used to work at the same

desk as me! Variety is the spice of life...

 

Cheers Graham