detente

One of the key things that interests me about Arcosanti, including the work that is ongoing there today, is its potential to be a great player in the realm of industry. Great, to me, does mean large, and largeness's attendant connotation, powerful. These are, to my mind, at least things to think about. Great also means useful, and then, particularly in the context of Arcosanti's ethical heritage, great means insightful and carefully purposeful. Industry means, at one level, getting things done, and, at another, more prosaic level, things like factories and the production of goods, real estate, or the creation of what Paolo called habitat, also literature and events, opportunities for people to engage in thought together, at least as examples, plus, the great bugaboo, finance. These are all things that industry means, to my way of thinking.

This thing that interests me about Arcosanti is its quality of being a collective of thinkers, and actors, of being a home to them, and a forum for them. As such it seems to me Arcosanti has access to resources - human resources, as recently noted, and also the resource that Paolo's work represents, that body of ideas, manifested in art, and memory, that Arcosanti is so intimately engaged with - that, really, I would say, will be applied towards the problem of industry. This is a key reason I remain, as a kind of spectator, quite interested in Arcosanti.

These ideas are, in a sense, and I say this because I think I can claim to know the place fairly well, foreign to Arcosanti. I think they are important concepts, sources of progress in the world, essential components of human progress, important resources for human progress. Perhaps my goal is to encourage a kind of detente between Arcosanti and these aspects of human affairs. Oh my goodness, this is so patently wrong! I am not, actually, concerned with Arcosanti's goals, but with my own! Those do mirror Arcosanti's goals, to some extent, even significantly, but they are my own goals. I am on an industrial mission - also, incidentally, an urbanistic mission, but that is in fact somewhat incidental - and I am trying to figure out how to connect with resources. My longstanding bad habit has been to think about Arcosanti, when I think about that. Arcosanti is a resource, or has that quality to it, and it is a place I'm connected with - that's part of my story - but the reality is, I am not really connected to Arcosanti As A Resource. I don't deserve to be. It's not one of my so called rights. And so, I have approached Arcosanti - rather again and again - offering them a kind of deal, my ideas, in exchange for some of their resources. What a laugh. What do they want with more ideas? What am I bringing to them that is actually useful or helpful? They have let me know, sometimes with gestures, sometimes explicitly, in words, that that is how they feel. That may not be extremely smart, on their part, but it is, in a way, reasonable. They, after all, have their own missions (Arcosanti is a group of people), their own mission, and I am probably only interfering. And my approach is, has been, in fact, in a real way, not reasonable. It's an immature approach. I am going to pursue my mission, my goals. That has nothing to do with Arcosanti, in the present, and may well not, in any future present, though my connection with Arcosanti, my experience there, my familiarity with Paolo's work and thought, will always be an influence, and a resource, for me. I am not writing this - this is simple self observation - for Arcosanti (except in my secret hopes). I am writing it to make a statement. I do feel I have a right to claim my experience at Arcosanti, my thinking about Arcology, as a part of who I am. It is galling to me not to state that claim, when I state to the world who I am, or that I am here. I am making that claim public, and asking the world to have a moment's patience with me, as I do that.