Exploring Intentional Communities: Finding Your Perfect Fit in Commune Projects

So here’s the thing, this person says, are any of your commune projects to the point where they’re accepting you people to come build and live? Is it word of mouth? Do you have to be recommended by current resident? So when we initially met to decide to do this project of building all these free lands all over the country, we had a bunch of people there who were from different intentional community projects in the past, people who had built communities, who had lived in communities, who were interested in doing that. In my case, I was invited because I had done my bachelor’s in like sustainable alternative infrastructure under urban planning. So one of the things that people really stressed is like you need to be really careful about saying like everyone come to this specific place because you might have 10,000 people show up and then like you’re just fucked. Like the land is just ruined, right? Like when we build infrastructure for these communities, the Dunbar number is super important. So it’s 30 to 50 people for a community. This is how humans evolved to live. And these communities are designed to grow, to accommodate up to a couple of hundred for up to a couple of weeks, up to a couple of times a year. So there’s biannual gatherings at all of these land projects where people can go check it out, see what’s going on, test drive the lifestyle, see if it fits them well. And then depending on the vibe, they might potentially be invited to stay or they could ask or depending on, there’s a different process for it everywhere. Whoever lives there decides the process. So they all have their own different system. Okay. There are like 10,000 of these across the US and they’re everywhere in the world. If you go to the Foundation for Intentional Communities, ic.org, they have a search. You can find one that’s nearby you. If you are nearby one of the ones that we did, then it’ll be on there and you should reach out to ones that are near you and ask them, how’s it going? Because there are a lot near you. There are a lot everywhere. You can search for any area and find intentional communities there. And there are all kinds of different ways you can get involved. You can attend the biannual gatherings. You can, for some of them, they’ll just let you drop in anytime. It’ll say on the website what they’re open to and you can reach out to them and be in touch with them about what they’re open to. They may or may not be interested in having new people. They may or may not be interested in having people come visit. They may or may not be interested in full-time kind of thing. And it depends a lot on you and what you can bring to the table and how much work it’s gonna take to make sure you don’t die. Because people show up with absolutely no idea what they’re doing, totally unprepared. That is a huge burden on the community to take care of you and teach you everything you need to know if you don’t already know that stuff. So depending on where you’re at with that journey, there’s a totally different set of options that are available to you, depending on how much work it’s gonna take someone for you to be okay. So you need to start by attending events, visiting these places, checking it out, learning what does it mean to have different kinds of ownership models, different kinds of decision-making models, different kinds of conflict resolution models, because most of them are not gonna be a good fit for you. And you have to understand why. You have to look at the aspects that will have a huge impact on the kind of life you would have there and then determine which one is actually a good fit for you. And then after that, find one that’s like what you want in terms of equity and decision-making and conflict resolution, and then find one where you vibe with the people. So there’s not one spot for you. There are a million options and there are a million dimensions of why you would want one option over the other, and you’ve gotta start by visiting and getting to know people and learning all that shit before you can make a decision which one’s for you. So wherever you are, check out that website, ic.org. Find intentional communities near you. Start visiting, start chatting, get to know people. You will find your place.