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It seems to me that either you do this "return to nature" alone, or there's a community inexorably sliding toward being a cult. There's nothing in between and t

by rini17 6y ago

It seems to me that either you do this "return to nature" alone, or there's a community inexorably sliding toward being a cult. There's nothing in between and then sadly, relationship of our whole society to nature suffers from this.

bildung 6y ago
I've visited a few communities quite a while ago, and I've found a common trait of those that didn't devolve into a cult: They were outward-oriented right from the beginning: Volunteering for various purposes, engaged in the local communities around etc. - things that made steady social contacts with the outside world a necessity. These communities usually also had less problems with gaining new people once the founding generation got a bit older. It's the same as with normal individuals, actually: The more the individual traits make one prefer solitude (like introversion or social anxiety), the more it is mandatory to maintain steady contact with others, otherwise the own comport zone steadily shrinks further.
throwaway4good 6y ago
Yeah. Maybe on Youtube, only the extremes exists. Sweden has thousands of remote houses (ødegård) that be bought or rented for very little. It can be refreshing going there for a few days. Drinking fresh cold water from a well in the forest, no electricity, a fireplace, some mosquitos, crayfish, playing scrable and looking at the rain. And then being reminded why it is actually quite nice and much more interesting to live in a big city.
- rini17 6y ago
  I have a natural garden with wildflowers. Anytime unwinding by sitting down and watching the bees. Planted all kinds of fruits and herbs, so there is always something to taste too. Looking forward for trees to grow and provide shade. Nicer than living in a big city. Everybody else around has a manicured lawn and ornamental shrubs. My garden is unkempt mess to them. That is what I mean by problematic relationship with nature. I don't think you can fix that by only occassionally spending few days in cabin. I had to discover much of it myself, have personal experience with communities as described and still would like to meet like-minded people but...somehow there aren't many.
- krageon 6y ago
  > some mosquitos Now now, surely you mean thousands of mosquitos. Especially if you have a lake nearby, which is a real big possibility in Sweden.
EdwardDiego 6y ago
I lived in an alpine village[1] for about 18 months - mainly to see if I could handle the winter, the isolation when the road closed due to snow and there were no tourists, just us. I was villager number 37, I think. In Spring, it rained (heavily, 5m of rain a year on average) 28 days out of 30, and on the other two it drizzled. Depending on the moods of the weather, floods could take out the roads[2], or slips, and never mind the earthquakes.[3] During the winter you had to fill the kettle at work before 10am, because 10am to 11am was the coldest part of the day and that's when the pipes would freeze (the village lay in a valley running north to south, and the mountains limited winter sunlight to 11am to 2pm). We weren't "returning to nature" as such, we always had power and usually dial-up (at a terrible bps...), but we were rather close to nature's virtues[4] and vicissitudes. We all relied heavily on wood fires, some on coal, although we only lost electricity some of the time. What was really interesting for me though, was how a population of 37 handles all of the above, without killing each other. Generally, everyone had one or two people that, I'd guess you'd call friends, but in reality were "people I can spend time with okay". Other than that, everyone kept themselves to themselves. In such a small village, it's very easy to gossip, hell, when you've only got two TV channels (and did I mention the shit dial-up?) it's an attractive option. But, there were three types of occasions the entire village came together: 1) Happy Hour at the local pub on a Wednesday. And this misleadingly named event could last until 4am. 2) Cleaning up all the crap that tourists like to leave behind. So. Much. Litter. Basically an emu parade[5] over 3km of village. 3) Whenever an emergency hit. Whether that was flooding, a power outage, a bush fire, everyone pitched in as they could, no matter their differences, everyone was in it together. I really enjoyed the model of living apart together, to be honest. Only reason I moved is that I got married, and about 20km down the road was a rather worrying neighbour, who I didn't want to subject my wife to...[6] > The Alpine Fault has a high probability (estimated at 30%) of rupturing in the next 50 years. The rupture will produce one of the biggest earthquakes since European settlement of New Zealand, and it will have a major impact on the lives of many people. But yeah, there was no inexorable slide towards a cult, because no-one could be bothered with that crap. And there were no "This man is actually an island, screw you John Donne" people, because when the the freeze came, and the cloud base was 100m above you, and visibility up and down the valley was 200m from you, in a valley 500m wide, everyone realised that they needed to talk to somebody every now and then, just to escape the reality that nature had put them in a frozen box. [1]: https://arthurspass.com https://arthurspass.com [2]: https://i.imgur.com/kFryHnV.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/kFryHnV.jpeg [3]: https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/assets/display/82881-max https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/assets/display/82881-max [4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyU3Q5DeKEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyU3Q5DeKEI [5]: https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/map/search/word/emu%20parade/Wester/ https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/ma... [6]: https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-Topics/Earthquakes/Major-Faults-in-New-Zealand/Alpine-Fault https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-Topics/Earthqua...
driverdan 6y ago
I downvoted you because there are millions of people who live in rural areas and aren't in a cult. I have no idea where you're getting this idea from. Try getting outside of cities and go somewhere rural next time you take a vacation.
- rini17 6y ago
  Have you read my reply with further explanation?
  - driverdan 6y ago
    The one about having a garden? If so it sounds like you're in suburbia, not a rural area. Get somewhere actually rural, like a town with less than 1000 people or an area with most people in agriculture. Somewhere people can't see their neighbors. You'll find most people don't care about suburban nonsense like preening lawns and HOAs.
    - rini17 6y ago
      The context was a "return to nature" movement, not specifically suburban morals. Rural areas, at least in my country, mostly consist either from intensive unsustainable agriculture, or forests that get logged out with increasing speed. There are attempts to steer to more ecological and climate-change-resistant land management but it's so slow and arduous. Nature is to them just something to be exploited.

by rini17 6y ago

bildung 6y ago

I've visited a few communities quite a while ago, and I've found a common trait of those that didn't devolve into a cult: They were outward-oriented right from the beginning: Volunteering for various purposes, engaged in the local communities around etc. - things that made steady social contacts with the outside world a necessity. These communities usually also had less problems with gaining new people once the founding generation got a bit older. It's the same as with normal individuals, actually: The more the individual traits make one prefer solitude (like introversion or social anxiety), the more it is mandatory to maintain steady contact with others, otherwise the own comport zone steadily shrinks further.

throwaway4good 6y ago

Yeah. Maybe on Youtube, only the extremes exists. Sweden has thousands of remote houses (ødegård) that be bought or rented for very little. It can be refreshing going there for a few days. Drinking fresh cold water from a well in the forest, no electricity, a fireplace, some mosquitos, crayfish, playing scrable and looking at the rain. And then being reminded why it is actually quite nice and much more interesting to live in a big city.

rini17 6y ago
I have a natural garden with wildflowers. Anytime unwinding by sitting down and watching the bees. Planted all kinds of fruits and herbs, so there is always something to taste too. Looking forward for trees to grow and provide shade. Nicer than living in a big city. Everybody else around has a manicured lawn and ornamental shrubs. My garden is unkempt mess to them. That is what I mean by problematic relationship with nature. I don't think you can fix that by only occassionally spending few days in cabin. I had to discover much of it myself, have personal experience with communities as described and still would like to meet like-minded people but...somehow there aren't many.
krageon 6y ago
> some mosquitos Now now, surely you mean thousands of mosquitos. Especially if you have a lake nearby, which is a real big possibility in Sweden.

EdwardDiego 6y ago

I lived in an alpine village[1] for about 18 months - mainly to see if I could handle the winter, the isolation when the road closed due to snow and there were no tourists, just us. I was villager number 37, I think. In Spring, it rained (heavily, 5m of rain a year on average) 28 days out of 30, and on the other two it drizzled. Depending on the moods of the weather, floods could take out the roads[2], or slips, and never mind the earthquakes.[3] During the winter you had to fill the kettle at work before 10am, because 10am to 11am was the coldest part of the day and that's when the pipes would freeze (the village lay in a valley running north to south, and the mountains limited winter sunlight to 11am to 2pm). We weren't "returning to nature" as such, we always had power and usually dial-up (at a terrible bps...), but we were rather close to nature's virtues[4] and vicissitudes. We all relied heavily on wood fires, some on coal, although we only lost electricity some of the time. What was really interesting for me though, was how a population of 37 handles all of the above, without killing each other. Generally, everyone had one or two people that, I'd guess you'd call friends, but in reality were "people I can spend time with okay". Other than that, everyone kept themselves to themselves. In such a small village, it's very easy to gossip, hell, when you've only got two TV channels (and did I mention the shit dial-up?) it's an attractive option. But, there were three types of occasions the entire village came together: 1) Happy Hour at the local pub on a Wednesday. And this misleadingly named event could last until 4am. 2) Cleaning up all the crap that tourists like to leave behind. So. Much. Litter. Basically an emu parade[5] over 3km of village. 3) Whenever an emergency hit. Whether that was flooding, a power outage, a bush fire, everyone pitched in as they could, no matter their differences, everyone was in it together. I really enjoyed the model of living apart together, to be honest. Only reason I moved is that I got married, and about 20km down the road was a rather worrying neighbour, who I didn't want to subject my wife to...[6] > The Alpine Fault has a high probability (estimated at 30%) of rupturing in the next 50 years. The rupture will produce one of the biggest earthquakes since European settlement of New Zealand, and it will have a major impact on the lives of many people. But yeah, there was no inexorable slide towards a cult, because no-one could be bothered with that crap. And there were no "This man is actually an island, screw you John Donne" people, because when the the freeze came, and the cloud base was 100m above you, and visibility up and down the valley was 200m from you, in a valley 500m wide, everyone realised that they needed to talk to somebody every now and then, just to escape the reality that nature had put them in a frozen box. [1]: https://arthurspass.com https://arthurspass.com [2]: https://i.imgur.com/kFryHnV.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/kFryHnV.jpeg [3]: https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/assets/display/82881-max https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/assets/display/82881-max [4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyU3Q5DeKEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyU3Q5DeKEI [5]: https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/map/search/word/emu%20parade/Wester/ https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/ma... [6]: https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-Topics/Earthquakes/Major-Faults-in-New-Zealand/Alpine-Fault https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-Topics/Earthqua...

driverdan 6y ago

I downvoted you because there are millions of people who live in rural areas and aren't in a cult. I have no idea where you're getting this idea from. Try getting outside of cities and go somewhere rural next time you take a vacation.

rini17 6y ago
Have you read my reply with further explanation?
- driverdan 6y ago
  The one about having a garden? If so it sounds like you're in suburbia, not a rural area. Get somewhere actually rural, like a town with less than 1000 people or an area with most people in agriculture. Somewhere people can't see their neighbors. You'll find most people don't care about suburban nonsense like preening lawns and HOAs.
  - rini17 6y ago
    The context was a "return to nature" movement, not specifically suburban morals. Rural areas, at least in my country, mostly consist either from intensive unsustainable agriculture, or forests that get logged out with increasing speed. There are attempts to steer to more ecological and climate-change-resistant land management but it's so slow and arduous. Nature is to them just something to be exploited.