Re: The Live Looping Community: myth or reality

[ArsOcarina@aol.com]

Ah, it's a jungle out there . . .

In a message dated 05/06/05 11:35:53, spgoodman@earthlight.net writes:

> > A community is a group of organisms that coalesce around something they
> > have in common. It could be a nutrient stream, a water hole,a protectable
> > place to raise young, a village adjacent to fields to graze the
> > flocks, which was called the commons, etc.

I've signed up early and often for some of the "alternative" live-looping 
forums and stuff that Matthias Grob and others have tried to start at 
Yahoo or Tribe.net. In them, sadly, the above "water hole" word-picture 
tends to hold very true. 

These groups, however well-meant and potentially well-moderated, 
as often as not, wind up more like someone posting a "water hole" sign 
in a seasonal dry lake bed or a desert crossroads. There is "traffic"
and/or "community" only when or if there is actually water. 

Water attracts traffic and traffic attracts traffic. 

Like in the animal kingdom, some of us are skittish and won't appear 
'til others already have (thereby proving it safe to drink) or we're
"social" to begin with, and only go where the congregation has already 
gathered (an unflattering "heard mentality" but a "normal" one).

Bringing it all back to out little LD "community" -- like any water hole, 
there are not only the many cautious herbivores and obvious large, 
predatory carnivores, there are also the occasional hyenas, jackals and 
other opportunistic scavengers and animal assassins.

It might do each of us good to do a little private self-examination 
and evaluate which sort we each tend to be (really, not just how 
we ideally like to think of ourselves). And, if changes are in order,
desirable and possible, to think about what we might do to make 
them happen.

I'm a large, dumb herbivore myself. I'm working on being less dumb
and less large lately. Heheheh.

Best regards,

tEd ® kiLLiAn

"Different is not always better, but better is always different"

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