(un)workable communities

tuesday;  chickens. milk. abbey. walk on common. abbey. chickens 

'when I review this whole process, I strongly feel that my deepest motives and problems have centered about the idea of community, although this idea has only come gradually to my clear consciousness... so much of the spirit that opposes the community I have and have always had in me...'  

-  josiah royce, author of california, a study in american character. 

there, horsemouth was just playing quote roulette (bibliomancy) with joan didion's where I was from.

it's not the kind of thing you usually hear or read. people are fulsome in their praise of community as an abstract good (one with no downsides or costs). 

horsemouth is part of a real actually existing community and, like communities everywhere, the actual lived experience is a bit shit. horsemouth's view is that far from being perfect comunities are usually unworkable and held together not by a belief in a utopian future but by a struggle over the allocation of shared resources. 

and yet here we have the free jazzers coming together to learn and play each other's tunes. 

and yet you can see why horsemouth would find this actually existing community tiresome and be looking for a way out. 

'so horsemouth's retirement plan looks something like this - live out of his savings until the state pension hits...' 

erm. so obviously horsemouth should be worried by the upcoming financial instability.

given the likely length of his ride out to pension day he can't expect it not to be bumpy.  what the late 2020ies will bring he has no idea (all bets are off). what the 2030ies will bring he really has no idea. 

he thinks that he's sufficiently close to his state pension that they are unlikely to up the date on him but that even if they do it will only be by a year or so.  governments of all political persuasions seem keen to keep the wrinklies onside by giving them a better deal than they give the young or working age population. (horsemouth thinks this is a bad idea but you won't catch him complaining). eventually this will pop.  

he expects his situation in life to have changed again by then (assuming he is still alive and healthy).  

his current lifestyle - halfway between the wild and the wen looks sustainable to him. the question is where does he really want to be in ten years time?  

ok it's monday evening and  horsemouth has just done a womble down to the abbey and back with his mum. no sign of a dore abbey calendar this year. horsemouth will have to get into town at some point to get a diary and a calendar (he doesn't think he can live with the RSPCA one). he also needs to pick up some more books to get his reading back up to speed. he has books he hasn't read here (but he has no desire to read them). 

he has been reading joan didion's where I was from but curiously didn't have the courage to start it. 

and at some point he needs to get more shelves (so that he can get more books). you see the problem.  

ok chickens and milk done. off to the abbey in a bit.