An Integrated Future

“What is your initial reaction to a smart, eco-friendly resort/refuge for people who are more psychologically, sexually, and spiritually evolved?”

I posted this question on several different platforms and it was the Facebook group, Future Fossils, which I joined most recently, that gave me the most productive response. With over 180 comments, I had a lot of feedback to digest.

I quickly realized that the phrasing of this proposal was a huge turn-off and with my training in NLP, I honestly should have known better. “More evolved” is a comparative which unconsciously invites comparison, in this case, the notion that there are people who are more evolved and people who are less evolved which then invites the question “am I more or less?” Ultimately this is divisive and revealed my ego trying to prove itself better than the rest. This reminds me of the quote “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”.

We are all evolving, or more accurately, we are all growing, experiencing change, and developing beliefs about the world and about ourselves. There is no objective measure for “personal evolution”.

Now before giving the background to this proposal, I want to chunk it down further.

I really liked the idea of an eco-village, commune, or something like a Radical Faerie sanctuary but I also am fascinated by smart and other emerging technologies and would love to have these technologies integrated into the community. My gut told me that the general response to integrating smart technology into an eco-village or sanctuary would be a hard pass…I just remembered https://www.regenvillages.com/# *heart-eyes emoji*

A couple of responses to the original proposal alluded to an outreach of some sort and instead of keeping healers in seclusion, to disperse them out into society. This is happening and will continue to happen. It also made me think about already existing online communities of people-helpers and wonder if we really need to have a physical space for the altruists to connect. The internet has shown itself to be both a resource of support while also being a source of toxicity. It is the collective consciousness, holding space for the brightest lights and the grimiest darks. The internet is still new and with each generation, it is becoming more integrated with the human experience. However, while we exist in a reality where human interaction physically and digitally is conceived as separate, we do need to hold physical circles for support.

I find that it is the healers, the people helpers who need to find healing themselves as they often do not make self-care a priority, sometimes to the extent of inviting toxic behaviors and toxic people into their sphere. As a people helper myself, I want to create a space that cultivates safety for the full expression of humanity, teaching others about setting boundaries and using their voice, finding and living out their truth, freeing people from the chains of guilt, shame, anxiety, and depression.

Now the background: I grew up in a conservative Christian home and was homeschooled for middle and high school. Essentially, I went through puberty confined to my home and the internet with the beliefs that homosexuality was destroying the modern family and you were supposed to wait until you were married to have sex. This made it very difficult to accept that I was gay (even though I would only ever watch gay porn). The struggle of lusting after women that other men in my church talked about was no struggle for me at all. I often felt like I didn’t belong and projected a sense of separation onto the people around me, further feeding my isolation. Aside from that, I had developed a non-sexual kink and discovered an online community of other people like me who introduced me to the rest of the kink and fetish world. No one knew how to teach me to include others in my life to feel included myself. (That’s something I’m still learning.)

It’s important to me that we create safe spaces to hold elevated conversations about the taboo, recognize their “normalcy” (which is a relative as personal evolution) and agree on ways to integrate the new normal into the old normal. I believe this can begin in village environments that can be a demonstration to society at large of the goal that we strive towards. A demonstration of an integrated future.