Contents

A dear friend had some serious words for me yesterday.  I'm still attempting to extract the personal lesson but it's a challenge for me because the message is all wrapped up in cultural prejudices, political preferences and personal fears.  

The fear is that I'm being led down a garden path straight into a sociopathic cult.  This cuts pretty deeply, especially since I don't consider myself to be a follower, and I would never make a very good cult member since I tend to be opinionated and at the very least... unique.  I don't really blend, and I never have.  And that really doesn't bother me much.  I am proud to have always been true to myself.  I think that's how it should be, and I'm not about to change now.  

What I've observed in reflecting on the comments is that were I joining a religious order, that would have been a shock, for certain, but definitely not considered a dangerous cult.  Had I said I was joining the military, (perhaps even something as scaled-down as the Coast Guard), that would have been admired, while also still rather shocking for someone like me.  The point is that because I am part of a group of individuals coming together under a non-traditional point of view, then the assumption is that - by definition - I am being inevitably drawn into a bath of Kool Aid and polygamy.

In my heart I know that this well-intentioned warning is coming from the fear of being taken advantage of because of naivete.  I should certainly be on the lookout for this - in all things.  And it is good practice to question one's self about these matters when involved in group efforts like building alternative communities.  

But to me it seems the lesson to be learned here is that all too often personal fears and biases stop us from building a different world.  That is not to say that mistakes won't happen along the way, for that is human nature.  But how are we to create a better world if we are always paralyzed by our own shadows?  By our lack of faith in our own intelligence, wisdom and experience?  I guess as the saying goes, it all starts from within.

The etymology of the word cult shows that it shares a root with care and cultivate and even to the word wheel.  Showing again that it's not a conceptual problem, but a perceptual one.