I posted my last paper, 'Ken's Request to Guest', on
October 19th. Since then, the membership team has decided
that there will be an input period so that members can
confidentially tell the team how they feel about me
continuing to live here as a non-member. I'm posting this
paper at the beginning of the input period to respond to
some of the comments on my last paper. Furthermore, I
would now like to live here temporarily as a resident
again, with the intention of beginning a provisional
membership in January, or at the very latest by February
5th. This is when my period of acceptance for provisional
membership expires.
I am now seeking to become a resident again rather than
extend being a guest because this would not require an
exception be made to membership policies. I also assume
that people would rather have me here as a resident than as
a guest.
As I wrote in my previous paper, I am postponing beginning
my provisonal membership because I have not been able to
make any plans. The last few months have been very trying
times. I am doing better now, partially due I think to
taking the herbal anti-depressant, Saint Johns Wort. I
have been taking it for the last several months and it
seems to have started helping as of late October.
I don't want to begin a provisional membership now because
for me it would mean having to move my savings into
riskier, longer-term investments that don't have the
potential of producing income until they are sold. This is
something I don't want to do until I can see living at Twin
Oaks for at least six more months.
It's true that I could just turn over to Twin Oaks whatever
income my savings produce. I don't want to do this. This is
because:
(1) The real value of my savings will decline, because of
the cost of inflation.
(2) I earned these savings by working very hard and on my
own in the tofu business
(3) I feel I already give more than my share to the
community thru my labor and responsible use of community
resources.
I'm not trying to change the community's income sharing
policies. I'm simply trying to find a way to live here for
the next two to three months, so that I can decide whether
or not I want to continue living here for a longer period,
and then make arrangements so that my savings are a
non-issue, and whereby they have at least the potential to
not decline in value.
I would have begun a provisional membership back in January
if the community allowed members to earn enough income on
their savings to keep their real value the same. True, the
real value of my savings would have declined 'only' about
$1350 over the course of the last year ($45K times 3%
annual inflation), but this represents a lot to me. It is
more than I have spent on living expenses in a six-month
period during the years that I have been away from Twin
Oaks (ex: I spent less than $200/mo while
camping/travelling out west in 1995&1996).
You are my friends and I do support living in community. I
'invest' myself in community everyday when I do at Twin
Oaks the same hard, wise, and responsible work that I gave
to make Virginia Soyworks a success. It doesn't seem fair
that I be 'penalized' for having been very frugal in how I
ran this tofu business (I would turn off the kettle pilot
light between production days), and how I saved more than
95% of the income I was earning (even though I was making
under $10 an hour). I sometimes put in twenty-hour days,
and worked sixty to hundred hour weeks.
I left Twin Oaks in 1989 to run Virginia Soyworks. I needed
$10K to buy it. Twin Oaks was only ready to loan me $500.
Given that the community couldn't have supported a much
more 'pc' business, and given that I had shown myself to
Twin Oaks to be a hard and smart worker, I didn't
understand why the community felt it couldn't afford the
risk, especially when I was offering the whole business up
as collateral. I came away with the message that my almost
four years of membership up to that point didn't count for
much, and that I was a lot more 'on my own' than I had
thought. This is one of the reasons why I am unwilling to
make myself more dependant on Twin Oaks by reducing the
value of my savings.
That's not to say that investing in the stock market has
increased my savings so much. In fact, although there's
pretty much been a bull market since I sold Virginia
Soyworks to Twin Oaks (which I did at cost) in 1991,
overall I've only kept up with inflation, and currently,
this year my investments aren't doing even that. But what I
did with this money was still my choice to make.
When I prepare a meal for the community, I take joy in
planning it out and executing it responsibly so that the
meal is made with high efficiency. I see what food needs
using up, refer to notes I've made about amounts and
recipies that worked well before, and map out how to lay
out the steam table to have an attractive and balanced
meal. I take joy in this because I know I'm doing a job
well, I'm using resources wisely, and am feeding people who
I care about, and a lifestyle that I support. Now isn't
that enough? If I'm here at Twin Oaks for the rest of my
life, then great. I probably won't be, but then that's fair
to say of almost any of us. In the meantime, don't ask me
to reduce the value of my savings. I view it as a lifeboat
that I will need when I leave Twin Oaks, and while I live
here my savings actually enable me to be more commited to
the community because I don't have to be as concerned about
how I'll make a transition when/if the time comes. I'd be
happy to work and brainstorm with others here how to make
that transition easier for others as well. I've written
papers and proposed OTRAS for that pupose before.
The next several months will give me the time I need to
make a decision about provisional membership. The time will
be different in that I expect my mood to be much more
elevated and stable than it has been. I won't just be
scraping by from day-to-day. I'll be able to think about
the long-term, and make some plans. I have the deadline of
February 5th to work with (when my period of acceptance for
provisional membership ends), besides that I don't want to
remain as a non-member at Twin Oaks for more than the next
three months. It costs me spiritually, as well as that I'm
not working towards the benefits of full membership.