It is always surprising when you come upon a piece of knowledge that has such a big impact on real life when you did not have much information about it beforehand. It is like learning that millions of years ago, all of the continents formed one giant land mass. Pangea. Up until this point, you had seen the world map. Looked at it over and over, knew the continents and oceans by heart and can point out at least a dozen countries- BUT, you had never made the connection that South America and Africa would have fit together like a glove. You had seen it, but the connection hadn’t been made on its own. This is the same concept for me as intentional communities.
Until reading through some of these links, I almost had no idea that intentional communities existed anywhere outside of movies. The concept was foreign, and made little sense, so my initial reaction in discovering them was to categorize the various groups of communities I was finding. As far as intentional communities go, I found that sustainability and religion were very important. However, there are many types of communities that share a more uncommon theme, like this millennial utopia.
It seems that the glue to an intentional community, much as in any community, is that everyone needs to have the same shared beliefs. Or, at the very least, a common belief. To me, the most fascinating communities revolved around individuals who believe in making life better for one another. It is frustrating to grow up in a world with so much hate and distrust. Communities that believe in peace and harmony and who wish to make the world easier for one another are something that I am fascinated in. I stumbled upon the treehouse community in East Hampton Massachusetts when beginning to search for the community that was physically made up of treehouses. The Easthampton community is a place for people age fifty-five and older to move and provide a home or safe space for foster kids. It is a safe place for children, and gives many people a chance to help and give back. These interactions are life changing, and those like it contribute to the world, not just the intentional community. Each person who is touched in this community can spread their own positivity in other places throughout the world. This community is here for one another and is advocating for peace.
Discovering, learning, and linking these communities together to find what the most common threads are would make a captivating area of study. By researching and making connections from community to community, I would be able to learn in a broader sense what makes a community work, and what holds it back. It will show what people in these communities value above all else, and produce evidence for the positive side of humanity.