sparr

You feel [verb]ed? That's also an accusation and request.

In the sentence “I feel ______“, the part of speech that fills that blank is an adjective, a word that describes a noun. I feel hot; a stove can also be described as hot. I feel sleepy; a cat can also be described as sleepy. I feel uncertain; the outcome of a coin flip can also be described as uncertain. These words are adjectives. These sentences describe my internal personal experience of my state of being. Nouns and adjectives, first person pronouns, the idea of feelings, and sentences of this form exist in most languages.

In English specifically, we also use past and present perfect tense verbs as adjectives. A painted (adjective) thing is a thing that has been painted (verb). A thing that has been improved is an improved thing. A given thing is a thing that has been given. The adjectives in these sentences describe the state of the thing. Even if the thing in question is an animal or person that has an internal experience and might have some subjective feelings, these statements don't necessarily describe that experience. These verb-based-adjective statements also describe some past or ongoing action and tell us about the state of the world. They say that painting happened, that improving happened, that giving happened.

In American English, the bare statement “I feel [verb]ed” always carries the implicit meaning of “I assert that [verb]ing happened”. You cannot say just “I feel honored” without also asserting “Someone has honored me”. Ditto re “I feel confused” and “Something confused me”, “I feel left out” and “Someone left me out”, or “I feel hurt” and “Someone or something hurt me”. The only way to make those adjective statements without the implication of the verb statement is with an explicit disclaimer and acknowledgement that your mental state does not correspond to reality. In my experience, this often sounds something like “I know this is all in my head and it's not based on anything anyone did, but I feel left out”. If you don't make the disclaimer, it's reasonable and appropriate for the other person to interpret the verb meaning of your statement and to respond in that context.

For positive adjectives and verbs (e.g. honored), that's the end of the story. Ditto for neutral valence verbs; you might say “I feel observed” without necessarily conveying any additional obvious meaning or purpose beyond the feeling existing and the observing having happened. For negative verbs, there's another layer. The more negative the verb is, the stronger the implied suggestion that the person doing the verb shouldn't do it and the request that they not do it to you. You cannot say just “I feel neglected” without also conveying “The person that neglected me should not do what they did [in the context in which they did it] to me or in general”. Ditto “insulted”, “injured”, “burned”, “abandoned”, “hurt”, “upset”, etc. If you want to express your feelings of this sort without suggesting the person should not do the things in general, that requires explicit clarification. If you don't intend to ask them to not do the thing specifically to you, that requires even more clarification. Those requests are implicit unless you say otherwise. In my experience, the alternative statement from you often sounds something like “I feel hurt, and even though you did something to trigger it I know that you aren't responsible for the hurt. You should keep doing what you're doing.”. If you don't make the disclaimer, it's reasonable and appropriate for the other person to interpret the request/suggestion meaning of your statement and to respond in that context. Once you've been made aware of these implications to the things you say, to ignore them would make you responsible for the consequences of the ensuing miscommunications.

Every time I have a discussion about this topic, many people disagree about the certainty of these implications and the reasonableness of responding to them. And yet, every time I ask for counterexamples, they come up empty. So, before you make that sort of response here, please ask yourself, have you ever told someone just “I feel hurt” (re their actions) and not also intended or wanted or expected to convey the meaning of “I request that you not repeat that action (in that context) toward me”? Have you ever told someone just “I feel disrespected” and not also intended or wanted or expected to convey the meaning of “You should not repeat that action (in that context), in general”? Examples of either of those sorts would go a long way to kickstarting a productive discussion on whatever disagreement we might have on the implied meanings I've described above. In the absence of such examples, or some other argument that I've failed to think of on my own, the only conclusion I can reach is that these implications are reasonable to interpret from the original statements.

On a meta level, it says something about me, personally, that I observe this pattern and make use of it in interpreting others' statements and that I think and write and attempt to educate about it. My awareness of this thing affects my conversations about feelings, often in ways that the other people involved think they would prefer to not be. In that sense, I am sorry for spreading this infohazard to you. But that doesn't outweigh the harms caused by people not recognizing this pattern and these implications, so here we are.

Setting community norms democratically within dictatorial bounds

This post is about something I've done before and plan to do again that I haven't seen discussed elsewhere. For that thing to make sense, I first want to describe some other things adjacent to it...

There are a few common modes of governance in groups of people. The most common category involves decisions being made some number of the people involved. When that number is everyone you have a democracy or consensus based or similar organization. When that number is less than most but still many people then you have a representational governance model. When that number is small you have something like a board or council. When that number is one then you might have a dictatorship or a sole elected leader. There are, of course, more complex systems involving committees, quorums, etc.

It is also relatively common to use different scales and methods of governance for different types of decisions. One or a few people might own the property and make decisions about new buildings, selling it, taxes, etc. A committee or subgroup might handle event planning, recruiting, onboarding, etc. Everyone might get a vote in meal times and quiet hours.

What I have done, and want to do again, and want to discuss here, is using those different scales and methods to make different parts of the same decision. The system I have in mind involves one or a few people setting hard boundaries for a rule or decision, and then more to all of the people involved drawing lines within those boundaries. In the examples below, I am the dictator in question, and I'm speaking from the perspective of me founding and organizing a community in which I would want to live with many other people. However, the same ideas apply if I am one of five co-buyers of a property and we are setting the boundaries that apply to decisions made by the more numerous non-owner members of our community.

The first motivation here is personal, to build an environment in which I want to live. A second motivation, similarly important, regards how decision making conflicts can affect the success or failure to get a project off the ground. A recent post on the Supernuclear blog (https://supernuclear.substack.com/p/how-to-kill-a-community-before-it) dove into the disastrous consequences of including too many strong preferences in choosing a property, and I believe that same concept applies to all sorts of early direction-setting decisions. My favorite quote is “The community that they now love and live in only exists because they didn’t get a vote at the founding.”

So, in that context, here are some of the boundaries that I would establish around a forming community, with the expectation that many people would self select out, and some other people, including myself, would be able to reach some common agreement within:

I don't want to live in a community where certain drugs are welcome. If the people around me are doing meth or heroin, I'm going to have a bad time. At the other end of the scale, I don't want to live in a completely sober community. Even though I am a sober person, I enjoy my friends and family being able to partake reasonably in things like alcohol and marijuana. So those are the boundaries I would set in advance; anyone who wants to join the next community I organize needs to be comfortable living somewhere in that range. If you need to have meth in your house, my house isn't for you. If you need everyone around you to be sober, ditto. But everything between those limits is up for discussion and decision among all the members of the community. Maybe we decide as a group that mushrooms and acid are ok, but cocaine and ketamine are not. That's my personal preference, but it's not nearly as strong of a preference as the ones I used to set the limits.

I don't want to live in a community that is only 25-50 year old able bodied professionals. I also don't want to live in a community that focuses the majority of its resources and efforts toward supporting young, old, disabled, etc members. My ideal would be about halfway between a representative sample of the population and a house filled entirely with my demographic neighbors, but I can see a comfortable future in a wide range of environments surrounding that ideal. I would set those initial boundaries and then let the community settle organically somewhere within them.

In terms of communal groceries and dinners, I don't want a diet with no animal products. I understand at least a few of the arguments and motivations behind vegan lifestyles, but that's not the right environment for me. I also don't want a diet where animal products are the only source of protein, or a necessary part of a healthy caloric intake. That's expensive and unnecessarily exclusive and potentially boring. In between? I don't have strong feelings, and everyone involved in the community can be part of the decisions about how we plan the food we share.

I need everyone to participate in community meetings with some frequency, at least often enough to vote for leadership and hear about large scale plans and upcoming changes. That might two to four times per year. I can't keep up with a community that has mandatory meetings more than twice a week. In between? We can all figure that out together.

I could give a dozen other examples, and probably will in a post more specifically about my next project when the time comes to pull that particular trigger. For the purpose of this post, I hope I've sufficiently illustrated the concept in question. I'd love to hear feedback on this approach, suggestions for how to tweak it, concerns about failure modes, variations you've seen in practice, etc. Feel free to comment here or reach out to me privately.

My Ideal Day

The first steps to achieving a goal are to determine and say it, right? To that end, here's what I want my typical day to look like, probably 2-5 years from now. Some of this will sound entirely mundane, but much of it requires some particular types of environment and circumstances. Arranging my life to bring those about is something this exercise is meant to help with.

I wake up around 7-9AM, having gotten a full night's sleep in a quiet place. My nesting partner probably shared my bed, and maybe we get up together or a short while apart. I get dressed, brush my teeth, then wander somewhere comfortable, perhaps inside or out. I spend 10-20 minutes on my computer or phone catching up on messages and posts from friends near and far.

Next I go out to the workshop or garage or barn to take quick next steps in some ongoing project. Perhaps flipping over something to dry, moving something from an oven or kiln to a cooling rack, starting a next batch of 3d printed components, etc. Or maybe I'm doing a quick chore like letting the chickens out to pasture, rotating the compost, etc. Something easy and productive that makes sense after letting it sit overnight.

At this point I enter a more social environment, with my partner and some of our intentional community neighbors. Someone, possibly me, is preparing a simple breakfast for half a dozen people or more. It might involve grits or oatmeal, bacon and eggs, fruit, etc. Everyone in the household or community knows where and when breakfast is typically shared, so I get to see many of my closest neighbors for at least a few minutes while we eat. We chat about our plans for the day, exciting parts of the previous day, etc.

The rest of my morning and into the afternoon involves productive projects. I could be working in the wood shop, doing some home improvement, coordinating community or event logistics, or working some sort of day job. This is where I'll usually have the most alone time, although collaboration will also be common. Whatever I am doing to “earn a living” will probably happen in this window, whether that's selling furniture or teaching classes or writing software. If I have lunch, which is more likely if I'm doing more physically demanding work, then it probably happens in the middle of this.

In the early evening I might help cook or relax before eating. Most of the community members will gather for dinner, perhaps around 6PM. Once every week or two this will segue into a community meeting, but the more typical day will just be social conversation and maybe a bit of planning for tomorrow.

Along the way between my morning routine and the wind down after dinner, I expect to have done about a half hour of work toward the maintenance of the space. This includes typical chores like cleaning and lawn care, but also more bespoke tasks specific to the community environment. Some days I'll have done this alone, and some working alongside one or two other people.

After dinner I will either do recreational things alone or with a partner or friend, or I'll participate in the rotating schedule of social activities in the community. Throughout the week and month I'll have the choice to attend movie nights, music jams, lightning talks, board and video games, etc.

One or two nights a week I'll expect more of a party atmosphere, around the fire pit or in our community lounge or theater, or traveling alone or with friends somewhere in the nearby/surrounding city for an event. Most nights I'll wind down quietly with some reading, video games, writing, and/or time with my partner. Then a shower and bed.

Even including the occasional exceptions described above, I wouldn't want every day to be like this. 60-80% would probably be about right, with the other 20-40% of my days following wildly different patterns. I expect to spend at least one weekend a month and a few weeks a year hosting and participating in multi-day all-day events. There will be some local and national and international travel, and corresponding gaps of days to weeks in this schedule. I will at least occasionally go all in on a project, spending 12-16 hours a day on it for multiple days to deliver some significant milestone or accomplishment. But, at the end of any of those diversions, I would want to come back to a routine something like this.

Having written this, I am now considering updates to my dating doc and personal user manual. My life goals haven't changed much since I wrote them, but there are some details here that could be relevant and newly insightful. I guess I'll consider those updates as things I could do later this month as part of this writing challenge.

The attached image is an aspirational schedule for a 50-150 person intentional [meta]community that I intend to create, which environment would correspond pretty closely to this life that I want to live.

Hunting for improved real estate for a large intentional community

For most of the last decade, I have been interested in buying a large property with existing improvements, both residential in nature and otherwise, to establish an intentional community of perhaps 50-200 people. I actually did buy a 25-acre 42-bedroom Victorian estate to start pursuing a smaller version of this plan. For various reasons, my search continued during and still in parallel with the wind down of that project. What I'm looking for is rare, but not impossible to find, so I think it could be useful to write this all down. Perhaps this will bring some leads my way.

Why existing improvements? They are much cheaper than new construction. They are often better in many ways than current zoning and other codes will allow to be built. That includes size, construction methods and materials, combination of uses, positioning on a parcel, and many other factors. They are available now instead of years later. They won't require review or approval processes, from local government or neighbors. In some cases they have historical meaning that wouldn't exist in something new, such as the work of a particular architect or artist, or association with some notable period or event.

There are a few categories of properties that tend to have some to most to all of the features I am looking for. Most that have caught my interest have been schools, either boarding high schools or small colleges. Some have been religious institutions or medical facilities. A few have been campgrounds, retreat centers, military facilities, jails, and weirder options. It is relatively easy to search for some of those categories separately, but not all together and never also filtering for the other factors that I am looking to find or avoid. So, to that end, here are most of the important variables I am considering:

Residential amenities should be sufficient for at least 50 people, preferably many more. Dorms are cheap and often found in schools and colleges. Apartment buildings aren't out of the question, and sometimes exist at colleges and military installations. Individual houses tend to be prohibitively expensive, but buying a neighborhood or small town isn't out of the question. I want room for enough people to have a village of the sort where many needs can be met locally. Larger scale means we could have our own mechanics, teachers, electricians, etc. With room for enough families, children can have local peers, and local schooling becomes more viable.

Non-residential amenities are also important. I am looking for facilities that have classrooms, large indoor activity spaces like a gymnasium, auditoriums or a theater, fabrication shops, auto maintenance space, large scale kitchens, etc. Having access to these things will advance many components of the larger plan. Each of them can be used for people to start small businesses and earn a living. Each can facilitate educational opportunities. They will allow for various recreational and hobby activities, including hosting events. There will be significant savings meeting the needs of the community due to pooling resources to have access to these amenities.

Unimproved land, at least tens of acres, preferably hundreds. This is the criterion that shifts the most with proximity to a city; a hundred acres in Montana will cost less than one acre in Alameda County. Some of this will be used for agriculture, which might fall anywhere along the spectrum from food forest permaculture to industrial farming. Some will be used for camping, hiking, possibly swimming, and other outdoor nature activities. Some will probably eventually be used for expansion; starting with existing improvements doesn't mean we won't build more five, ten, or twenty years down the road.

As mentioned, proximity to a city is important, the bigger the better. Cities mean access to culture and opportunities that won't be found elsewhere. A city would mean a much larger pool of potential participants for classes, events, etc. I won't find the rest of this list in downtown SF or NYC, but I have found most of it at the edge of those cities' transit networks. I'm open to being 10 minutes by bike then 90 minutes by train from Grand Central Station, and I have found appealing properties at that distance. Transit from my current place to Boston costs $12 and takes about 3 hours; the price is ok but the time is too much. Other cities will do, even if they are less appealing to me personally; my recent short list includes properties close to Portland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and St Louis.

Long term sustainability is a major factor that shows up in a few different ways. A natural water supply is a major selling point. Good weather for farming (not too dry) and solar power (not too cloudy) are important. Locations away from climate change risk (rising temperatures, rising oceans) are significantly preferable. Forests are nice, but buildings in forests in wildfire territory are not. Good soil and lack of industrial pollutants are also something I'm looking for. These are all things that are of some benefit immediately, and will have huge value in more disastrous potential futures.

Much less individually important, but still important overall, is the variety of non-residential amenities. I'm looking for educational facilities like classrooms and labs and auditoriums. Recreational amenities like sports fields and theaters. Practical facilities like shops, kitchens, barns, etc. Existing agricultural space such as farm fields, orchards, and vineyards. The perfect property would have a wide variety of types and sizes of all of these categories. A property with only residential improvements, like an apartment complex, is almost entirely unappealing.

Price is, of course, a major factor. If I can do this at a large enough scale successfully, I suspect I would be able to find significant financial support for a second iteration of the project, but that doesn't help the first time at a new scale. Left to my own devices, I'm looking at places in the $1-2M price range. Hoping to find some amount of financing, I have considered properties with list prices of up to $5M. This cuts out a lot of the most exciting options, but still leaves plenty that can work.

At this point, you might think this list is impossibly specific and unrealistic. To hopefully address that expected response, I'm going to describe a few properties that I have at least been very interested in, some of which I have pursued, one of which I bought:

25 acres, 42 bedrooms (split between Victorian mansion and modern dormitory), 10k sqft of function/activity space, small garage, historic gardens. 3 hours from city center by transit or 50 minutes by car, walking distance to small town amenities. $1.4M sale price 54 acres, 150 bedrooms (mostly dorms), 200k sqft of function/activity space, orchard, vineyard, 3gal/s deeded spring water rights, waste water treatment facility, sports fields, 30 minutes from city center by car. $2M sale 123 acres, 42 one-bedroom apartments, common function and recreation spaces, spa. Forest trails, adjacent to state game land with public walking access to the Appalachian Trail. 90 minutes by car or 2 hours by transit to city centers. $3M listing price 47 acres, ~100 bedrooms (mostly dorms), classrooms, offices, commercial kitchen, dining facilities. 20 minutes by car or 60 minutes by bus to city center. $3.3M listing 155 acres, ~350 bedrooms (mostly dorms), 400k sqft function/activity space, classrooms, offices, labs, gyms, shops, farm, greenhouses, gyms, sports fields. 90 minutes from city center by car, walking distance to small town amenities. $4.5M sale 123 acres, 89 1-2 bedroom homes, a decommissioned military installation that's basically a whole town with the relevant facilities and utilities. $4.9M sale. 225 acres, ~300 bedrooms (mostly dorms), 200k sqft function/activity space across 20 buildings, no deferred maintenance, small college amenities. 3 hours from city center by car. $5M listing

If you ever come across a property that seems like it might be a fit, I'd love to hear about it. Whenever I find a new property that even moderately aligns with these goals, I post it to a channel on the CoDwell Discord (https://discord.gg/Dph5zk32Y). If you want to know more about my plans for my next project and community, there's a bit of insight into one possible version of that at http://CoDwell.org. While my funds are tied up right now, that server and site are mostly idle. However, I intend to kick things back into gear as soon as I'm ready to coordinate efforts on my next big project. Hang out there or watch here for my later posts if you want to know more.

Most people don't understand giving 100%

Have you ever worked yourself to physical exhaustion, enough so that you would fall if you tried to stand up, or drop something if you tried to lift it? Have you ever worked yourself to mental exhaustion, enough so that you can't figure out which way to turn a jar lid, can't recall your phone number, or forget to take your clothes off before getting in the shower? Many people with mental or physical disabilities can relate; these can be failure modes of their attempts at everyday tasks, let alone if they try to keep up with able bodied friends. But for those able bodied friends, this idea is entirely foreign. This post isn't about the able bodied people misunderstanding those with disabilities; that's a topic worthy of far more discussion. This post is about them misunderstanding the few able bodied people who ever push that far.

I encounter this situation with some regularity when people are telling me how I could have better handled some interpersonal interaction as part of a project or task. Maybe I was verbally short with someone. Maybe I ignored an offer of help. Maybe I took a tool away from someone to do their task myself. The admonitions I encounter later often sound like “You should have just taken a little extra time to explain it to them” or “You could have picked up some of the slack when they fell short”. It took me a long time to realize that the people saying these things are always keeping a large reserve. When they are faced with the need to give 10% more effort to avoid upsetting someone else, they do it. When they have to work 20% harder on a task to pick up someone else's slack, they do it. They see me not doing these things and perceive some unwillingness on my part at an interpersonal and social level. Sometimes they think I simply don't know how to pursue these options. They seem oblivious to the nature of my efforts such that there is no 10% or 20% more that I am able to give. I may already be on track to come within 10% of exhaustion, such that trying to give an extra 10% or more would result in the project failing. The idea of planning to work close to exhaustion, or getting there despite a plan to not, seems alien to most people. When I try to bring it up they either don't understand or don't believe me.

The same conversation tends to go somewhat better when it comes to money. When someone tells me I could have maintained social harmony by spending 20% more money (a common response in discussions about coliving), I often respond that I didn't have that much to spend. This doesn't always get through, but that failure mode is far less common than when the expenditure is physical or mental energy. I think this is due to most people being personally familiar with the idea of running out of money, or just planning to get close. The results are even better when discussing spending all of someone's available time (regardless of effort). We all have the same 24 hours in a day, so most people understand that it's not always possible to spend more time, and most people plan to spend most of their time when necessary. If you've reasonably planned in advance to spend 80-100% of your available time then that extra 10-20% might be strictly impossible, and almost everyone understands that.

In short, “We have to use this approach even if it makes Pat upset, because we will run out of time otherwise” is far better received than “because we will run out of money otherwise”, and that far better than “because Sam will reach physical exhaustion and we will lose their contributions and then fail at our goal”. This goes doubly so when the statements are made in hindsight, explaining decisions that were already made.

Is there some way I can improve those earlier discussions, about physical or mental energy, or even about money, to achieve the higher success rate found in the discussions about time? I've tried analogies and drawing parallels. I've tried waiting until both types of thing happen so I can bring them up in the same conversation. I'm not sure what other approaches could be useful here.

Why write about a pattern without actionable followup?

A recurring topic in my writing is of the form “I have noticed a pattern connecting these seemingly disconnected things”, e.g. “X Y Z things are similar in A B C ways”. That's the whole premise, just identifying and describing the pattern, without explicitly proceeding toward any specific conclusion or actionable insight. Sometimes just that step will take hundreds to thousands of words, so I will stop even if I do already have those other steps in mind. Two of the items on my potential writing challenge topic lists have this same general shape. A friend saw that and seemed confused at the point of such a thing, hence this writing.

I have a few different goals when I write about a pattern. There are a few different implicit questions and goals and imperatives silently tacked onto the end of every such writing. When I read this sort of thing, I see these implications automatically, but apparently not everyone does. When I describe a pattern...

I am looking for agreement like “Yes, I see that pattern too” from people who have already noticed the thing. I seek confirmation that the pattern exists, and of my pattern-finding abilities. I am looking to add confidence to any of the actionable steps that might come next. I am trying to build rapport with you, my fellow pattern-noticer. I am demonstrating my competence on this front.

I am looking for disagreement like “No, you've misunderstood Y+C, it doesn't actually fit the described pattern”. My intention here is to correct my own misconceptions and mistakes (or, perhaps, yours). There is value in improving my pattern-finding abilities. I want to highlight that Y and/or C are some combination of the factors you're most aware of and the factors you care the most about, or the factors I'm least aware of, to inform our further conversation. I want to avoid making decisions about X+C based on my already knowing how to handle Y+C (or vice versa) if it turns out they aren't connected in the way I thought.

I am looking to educate, which might sound like “I didn't see that pattern before, but now I do”. I want for everyone else all of the benefits described in the previous two paragraphs. I want everyone to have a better understanding of the world, and to be better at evaluating it. I hope that this allows us or you to better collaborate, in general and especially on this specific pattern.

I am suggesting that insights and experience on one of the things might be relevant to the others, due to the pattern. “If you know know the failure modes of X, you might know some of the failure modes of Z, even if you've never tried Z”. I want feedback on that relationship, so that I and others can better apply our knowledge about Z to X and Y.

I am looking for insight into which aspects of the pattern are most important, in general and to the people around me. If 90% of the conversation is about specifically X+A vs Z+A, then I'm probably going to focus less on Y, B, and C in whatever I write or say or do next, or if I do focus on those things then it will be specifically.

I am telling you that, all else being equal, if you're approaching one of the things for the first time, that you should apply your knowledge of the other thing to that experience. “If you know that D is dangerous to X and Y, you shouldn't do D to Z until you've confirmed it breaks the pattern”. “You should assume the first step of building a Y is the same as the first step of building an X until you know otherwise”, “The biggest factor in the cost of an X is B, so you should consider B when valuing a Y”, etc. This “should” is stronger than the “suggest” in the previous paragraph; once I have pointed such a pattern out to you, you bear increased responsibility if you ignore that pattern in your decision making.

I'm sure that I have missed a few things on this list. It's hard to exhaustively enumerate my motivations for doing something that I do regularly. But that doesn't mean it's not worth trying! You can look forward to future posts in this month's writing challenge with working titles of “Why do I keep trying to make big intentional community projects happen?” and “Why do I keep writing about consent? (Rewrite)”.

We need a way to ask Maybe/No questions

There is a large gap in common vernacular English around things that look like yes/no questions but where the asker already knows that one of the two answers can't be certain in the current context. We have no way to concisely communicate that this is what we're asking, and so the person being asked is usually operating under the expectation of more certain yes or no outcomes.

This is especially true of licensed professionals who take on significant responsibility and risk when they answer questions in their field. Lawyers answering legal questions, Engineers asking safety questions, Doctors answering medical questions, etc. In typical conversation, these professionals will always expect that whatever answer they give you needs to hold up to professional scrutiny from all angles. We need a concise way to effectively convey the following sentiment:

“I know that this sounds like a yes/no question, because the ultimate answer will be yes or no. However, I am not asking you to distinguish between those two answers. I am asking you to instead distinguish between the easier of the two answers and the alternative that includes both the more difficult to determine answer and all of the uncertainty or lack of specificity in between.”

By way of a generalized example, consider the question “Is this course of action safe?”. This looks like a yes or no question, and the ultimate answer is going to be yes or no, for some specific version of the course of action and definition of “safe”, both of which might require further elaboration as part of the answer. This is often a rather difficult question for which to reach a “yes, it is safe” answer. That answer might require many additional details, research, calculations, etc, and those things might not be available easily or at all in a particular context. However, it is often a very easy question for which to reach a “no, it is not safe” answer. For those questions, it could be very useful for the asker to learn the distinction between “no” and “I don't know” / “It depends” / “Maybe”. They might be able to get a dozen answers of that variety with less effort on the other person's part than a single confident “yes” answer, and that could be a useful result.

It should be quick and easy to preface a yes/no question and indicate that you're looking for the easy answer or a maybe or depends, not the easy answer or the hard answer. Of course, the person answering can always decide to answer that way, but that's not the same as the person asking making it clear that they know up front that this is the type of answer they are expecting. We need a better way to ask this category of question. How would you approach trying to make this work more smoothly?

Lessons from Estate of Mind

I have learned a lot from fifteen years of organizing coliving intentional communities, none more so than my most recent project at Estate of Mind. Although it's not fully wrapped up yet, I think I can see all the plausible paths to the end, so this feels like a good time for at least the first iteration of writing down what I am taking away from this experience. Some of these are brand new discoveries, but most of them are things I had hints of far sooner that have more fully crystallized now.

If you are new to my posts and life, a quick summary... Estate of Mind (http://est8ofmind.com) was a 42 bedroom historic Victorian estate near Worcester MA USA, housing 15-20 full time residents and some visitors and volunteers. The community focus was on arts, makers, event hosting, and project collaboration. In the third year of the project a fire rendered the largest nicest building unusable, taking away half of our bedrooms and almost all of our function space. The community dissolved shortly thereafter. Wrapping that up is currently my full time job.

First and foremost, I am now committed to having a long financial runway for whatever I do next. The larger the project, the more important it is to be able to to be selective about people and opportunities in the early years. When I was putting four or five figures into starting a project, the possibility of it failing after a year didn't faze me. Move fast, break things, try again. Now that my personal financial investment is seven figures, and I am slowly running out of decades to try, I care more about longevity and certainty. When a project like this reaches the point of “we must accept the next income opportunity that becomes available (investor, renter, event, etc)”, it has already left the realm of safety and is probably on the way to failure. That point came about two years in at Estate of Mind. If I had this to do over again, I would commit slightly less of the total budget for the initial outlay and ongoing expenses, with a larger buffer for unexpected expenses and drops in income, to push the plausible uncertainty out a few more years.

Almost as important, I won't do this again without a solid legal plan for removing problematic participants. On the one hand, I love blue states. I want everyone to have the social safety net that comes with a progressive political atmosphere, in terms of healthcare, food security, political representation, etc. On the other hand, MA and CA are havens for professional tenants who cause a variety of problems for years with no recourse for the people stuck with them, and that's even if you ignore the tens of thousands of dollars of financial loss. I have seen this failure mode from afar many times, but this was my first time experiencing it first hand. My next project with a coliving component will be organized in a way that eliminates this possibility. That means either moving to a red state, or adopting the structural framework of either an educational or secular religious institution, although I am also investigating other options. Both of those paths are compatible with my other large scale goals of community, project collaboration, economy of scale, events, shared interests and passions, etc. I was very excited when I organized a tour of intentional communities across the US in 2024 and found a significant fraction of the longest lived ones used one of those two institutional models.

With over 50% compliance to our best attempt, the efforts here to design a large scale household chore system went better than most I've seen, but still not what I would call a success. Allowing people to choose their own chores worked well. Ditto for reserving particular chores weeks to months in advance for people who want a reliable schedule and level of commitment. We also saw positive effect from making an explicit checklist for each chore. All of those are features I would replicate next time. Where the system here fell down was not having any effective enforcement mechanism, and not having a way to prioritize or incentivize chores that were falling behind schedule. Those are where I would focus my efforts to improve in the future.

The scale of the property was nice, and we made good use of a bunch of amenities we wouldn't have had on a smaller property. This project has reinforced my feelings about economy of scale; more people pooling their resources can get far more than proportional benefits in the amenities they share. Having large indoor event/activity/craft spaces was great. Having large clear and forested outdoor spaces was great. I would do all of that again, even larger if possible.

The location may have spoiled me. Just looking for properties this big is already a strong filter. There might be just a few dozen on the market across the country at any given time, and far fewer once price becomes a factor. So, within that context, being able to walk to town amenities (post office, bank, mechanic, salon, diner, sushi, etc etc etc) was not at all on my bingo card when I was searching five years ago. These sorts of things are a given when searching for a home in a city or town, but I assumed they were not possible when looking for something big. Now that I know this particular combination of size and location exists and this one has prompted me to find other examples, it's going to be hard to consider going back to less.

Having multiple buildings and segregating people based on some lifestyle choices and needs worked pretty well, and I will almost certainly do that again. The three categories here were “has a pet”, “willing to trade noise and temperature comfort for a room in the beautiful building”, and “everyone else”. I am already planning similar divides around pets and loudness in my next project, with another potential category for families with children.

In my 20s, I was a stickler for the exact wording of contracts. There might have been five years where I didn't sign an agreement longer than a sentence that I hadn't amended. Society beat that out of me in my 30s, as longer and longer boilerplate contracts came into my life, and that bit me hard here. I've lost about two years of my life to taking bad advice from some professional agents about how everything will turn out fine if I just go with the flow and do things how everyone else does them. I won't be making that mistake again.

On more personal notes... This has been yet another experience cementing my preference to live with a romantic partner where we both have private personal space large enough to share when we choose and far enough apart to not feel overwhelmed when we need time to think. Especially with enough common amenities that we can have guests that aren't compatible with each other, socially or otherwise. I remain confident that I want to live my life surrounded by like-minded people who regularly build things and teach classes and host parties. I have a better understanding for my comfort level in risking my life savings toward a large project.

Once things are fully wrapped up here, I'll probably write something with a bit more scope and reach, covering not only these lessons but integrating them with all the things I already knew from previous projects. I might write it with the intention of reaching new coliving organizers, or perhaps as part of the planning for my next project. I'm looking forward to what comes next. I anticipate putting all this experience to good use, hopefully for the benefit of many people. Wish me luck!

Legal Situation Update

Most of my writing challenge days will be journal or article style. Since I spent most of the day in court, today you're getting an update on my legal and financial situation.

First, the big lawsuit preventing the sale of the Estate of Mind property, my home. Lee Jundanian['s LLC] is still suing me, still blocking any other sales. His best settlement offer so far is about a million dollars less than our contract price, which is about a million below the current market value of the property. I've offered about halfway between the contract price and the current market value. We're currently scheduled for trial in September, but he has moved for another delay. I have in-progress motions to kick Lisa out of the case, split the case into separate judge trial and jury trial halves, reconsider my denied motion for summary judgment.

If I get everything I claim he owes me, I'll get to sell the property to new buyers later this year at the market value, and his LLC will owe me six or seven figures. I doubt I'll ever be able to collect on that, but it might be worth putting some of the sale money toward a lawyer to pursue it. If he gets everything he claims I owe him, he'll get the property for free and I'll owe him an additional six figure amount. This seems extremely unlikely, but stranger things have happened. This is really the only outcome that might lead to me declaring bankruptcy. Assigning probabilities to all the various outcomes, my current EV from the case is to pay off my debts and come out $1.1M ahead (not counting the value of the last two years of my life), ten months from now.

So far the most insightful advice I've gotten on the merits of the trial is one person who has given me a pretty detailed breakdown of how Lee might win by making me look like an asshole to a jury, so much so that they ignore all of the legal aspects of the case. I have him dead to rights half a dozen different ways on the merits, and even if he was planning on me being an awful lawyer two years ago I'm at least slightly better at it now, so this could be his fallback plan. I've started to plan for this eventuality, but there are still so many unknowns (e.g. many of his witnesses don't even know they are on his witness list yet).

The manor continues to deteriorate; even the most optimistic outlooks (including mine) don't expect it to be repairable any more. There are still some components that could be saved, like windows and fireplaces, but less of that every year. I still spend a full time job worth of effort as a caretaker of the property and an amateur lawyer. I don't have enough extra time or mental energy to get a new job after the sale falling through cost me my last one. I found an old retirement account that should cover my expenses for the next year or so; after that I'll be leaning on the friend who currently holds my mortgage.

Matthew is in jail, having pled guilty to threatening me and having my stolen stuff (not hitting me and stealing my stuff, because the Uxbridge DA prefers a sure thing). That might only last another couple of months, despite his other more serious pending charges, so I got a new restraining order based on the criminal convictions and his violation of the previous restraining order.

Lisa's restraining order against me has expired. It's still a black mark on my legal record that I'll need to do something about. I have designs on a SCOTUS case about a serious due process violation in the MA Appeals Court, but that will have to wait until I have nothing more pressing on my plate.

I still have a handful of housing court cases with Matthew and Lisa. They accuse me of being a bad landlord. I accuse them of being bad tenants and breaking and stealing my stuff. If there are no more delays, those might be headed toward resolution in August or September. Lisa's eviction case is finally over, but the judge made an exceptionally niche ruling that threw us both for a loop. I'm going to have to take her to court again if I want to pursue the first year of unpaid rent. If all our current cases wrap up later this year then I won't bother, but if any of them get stretched out by delays and appeals then I'll probably throw that onto the pile.

If I can ever sell this place, the taxes will put some extreme time constraints on the situation. It's entirely plausible that the decision that I can sell comes down to a judge taking an arbitrary number of months to rule. As soon as that hits, I'll need to list, contract, and close in short order, and then I'll have just three months to find a new place to buy or invest in. This is why you see me posting about properties every month; I need to have a list of candidates ready when the time comes.

Thanks for coming along for this ride. I hope to see you all on the other side!

What to do when my questions indicate I'm more informed than you think?

There is a recurring failure mode in my communication with people, particularly around sensitive and divisive topics. You make some statements at least partially establishing a position on the topic in question. I ask some questions about the specifics of your position or ideas. This leads you to think that I am uninformed about the topic. This is where the conversation starts to go off the rails, because the reality is often that I am so much more informed about the topic that I know about alternative positions that you don't. I need to distinguish between those positions that you aren't considering at all in order to understand which position is yours.

Perhaps some examples will be helpful.

I ask what you believe gets someone into heaven. You think this means I'm ignorant about Christianity, and that “everyone” “knows” “the” answer to this question. Instead, it's actually based on my already knowing that different sects have different beliefs on this point, and my goal is to find out which sect(s) you might align with. I ask whether some action or scenario demonstrates racism or sexism. You think this means I don't know what those words mean. It actually indicates that I know that different definitions aren't consistent with each other, and I want to narrow down and better understand your belief. I ask what model of intimate consent you subscribe to. You think this means I'm uninformed about the nature of consent. Instead, it's based on my already being well informed about a wide variety of often contradictory such models that people use to define [non]consent.

In every such case, your response gives me a strong indication that you might not be aware of the existence of those other groups who share your labels and language but disagree with you on critical aspects of your beliefs.

I have tried simply couching my questions in assurances of my existing understanding. I have tried enumerating some of the common answers as part of my question. I have tried asking these questions as soon as the uncertainty arises, or delaying them until much later in the conversation with the hope we are both able to retroactively reassess what was said when the context is provided later, and everywhere in between. I have tried never asking them at all, and simply leaving the conversation with far less knowledge of your position than you think you gave me.

I would like to be better at having these conversations. These are important topics, and we are all better off when more of us understand what's going on and can discuss and reach accords if not agreement. The outcomes of these conversations will continue to have significant impact on the social and living environments around me and that I establish and nurture in the future.

I'm not sure how to better approach these situations. I know that the most common solution is to just not have these conversations in the first place (“Never discuss politics or religion in polite company.”). I would really like to be able to help others and myself make better decisions about all sorts of things, especially when they seem to want to engage on the subject. So I come to you, internet hive mind, crowd o' wisdom, my peeps... What do?