The Raft Story

This is a symbolic story of life in civilization - a life without love - and how you need to make community happen to make it out of there.

I'm in the middle of an ocean without sight of land. I try to keep on holding my head above the water in the middle of nothing. Sometimes, usually between periods that seem very long, I find floating debris in the ocean, pieces of wood, and I tie myself to those pieces in order for it to be easier to float. The first piece of wood helps some, but I can't leave my whole weight on it, because tied to my whole mass it would also sink. I have to be strong and swim until I have in time collected a heap of debris. I have to make sure it is tied well together so that it will be a sturdy raft. Then I can lay upon it when I have used my strength, keep an eye that the tying stays firm, sometimes propel it forward with my feet, until one day I have reached land.

The ocean symbolizes my culture, the Euro-American mass culture, or more largely, civilization. It's the hopeless desert devoid of love and community, where you have to be strong and work and go on everyday without hope that you would ever find someone or someplace where you would feel loved, where you would wake up each morning renewed and curious. The debris are people that I can share love with. Only one person can't support me enough that if I give them all my sadness and desperation, they could have the time and the will to stay with me and give me enough love that I would stay somehow happy and sane - no-one alone can complete me. But if we find a lot of people who can share love with each other, we can all support each other, help each other each in ways that other's can't, and form a community that listens how everybody's faring and cares about it, so that everybody feels taken care of. Then everyone can take turns being sad or ill and resting and they won't be abandoned to die alone, but be supported by the community. And when someone has strength, they can work for the good of everyone. And all the time everyone must make sure that the ropes, which are inter-personal relations, are not breaking or coming too loose; that is, to deal with all the problems that arouse within the community at the moment they come and with honesty and openness.

There are some additions to the story (where the pieces of wood are actually humans now): We may have to look for a suitable island for years, because in some there are people who don't want us there, or there are too much people, or the land is polluted, but sooner or later we find a wild, beautiful island rich in lush vegetation and graceful animals that we can call home. What we find in the healthy environment feeds us, our love for each other feeds us, and we are happy.
BUT: If we come upon a motor engine to make our raft go faster or if we find a hair-dryer or TV or anything electric on the island, or if we invent such, we shouldn't in the name of our lives use it, because it will pollute our island and increase the greenhouse effect and the ocean will rise and then we'll be again lost in the middle of nothing, feeling really stupid. And we must be wary of making too much kids or we'll consume the island until it can't support us and we die - feeling really stupid.

At the time I am writing this (December 2008), I am still struggling in the ocean. I have found many friends who want to move to the countryside/the wild, but they don't know each other much yet, and we aren't really active in planning to move to a common home at the moment - so you could say my raft isn't tied yet and no-one's propelling. But having friends who I can share love with still keeps me above the water. I need their love as much as I need food or sleep.