Earlier, I talked about the questions we asked our (Winslow cohousing) community:
"Why do we choose consensus? Do we in fact still choose consensus? Why do I personally choose consensus?"
My belief is that there are some big driving needs behind choosing consensus and community, and hopefully these needs are strong enough to keep us going even when we hit the inevitable frustrations and hurt.
But the idea of driving needs is a new one. It is part of the recent personal growth movement . Other people see it a bit differently. They see themselves driven not just by needs but more importantly by values.
To me it doesn't matter because in the end the goal is the same -- find that core strength that keeps you moving forward when the going gets difficult.
We created "Angel Cards", each card with a driving need on it. When you got an "Angel Card" we requested that you look to see how that "Angel" showed up in your life. The idea is that magical things happen when you change your focus.
But we had a controversy over whether the word "Participation" belonged in our "Angel Cards". It technically is not a driving need -- it is more likely the result of the driving needs for intimacy and connection. But not including the word angered some people, particularily Allen, and they wanted me to understand that they had another way of looking at things.
At the time, I was carless (and quite happy about that), but I wanted to visit my son in Olympia, so I took the train from Seattle. All that day, off and on, I was musing on the difference between driving needs and principles.
Here is the email I came up with after the trip.
--
Allen,
Believe it or not this story relates to our current discussion, please bear with me :-)
I took Amtrack down to visit Uly in Olympia. I have never taken this train, and probably never would if I had my car. They have an observation car that is mostly windows and has seats that face out. After you get past Tacoma the train runs right next to the water and is a great view -- in fact taking the train should be on the top todo lists for tourists when they come visit.
I was greeted with a smile by two people waiting at the station who reassured me that, yes, this was the Olympia station. And there was a helpful attendant inside the station who counseled me that for the return trip the train might be crowded so it would make sense to buy my return ticket right then. The station itself was clean, bright and attractive -- much, much nicer than your normal run down public transportation station. Uly was running late in picking me up, but there was even a good wi-fi connection to occupy me.
There was a sign saying that everyone was a volunteer at the station. I didn't think I understood that correctly -- that didn't seem quite right. On the return trip it turned out that the Amtrack schedule was probably incorrect, so I had an extra 30 minutes to wait. The attendants gave nice updates on which trains were coming (one going south one going north). They had video camera feeds that let them see where the trains were and when they would be coming.
There were some nice plaques on the wall so I wandered over to read them (I'm a sucker for stuff like that), and I started to learn a little about the history of the station. It was built in 1993 almost entirely by volunteer efforts ( with the county donating the land and some of the money). They had 75 volunteers who between them covered 3 shifts every day. They were very proud that they have never failed to have someone there to greet the train. No passenger has ever gotten off the train to a closed station.
Why would people volunteer to run a train station? I asked one of the attendants behind the counter and he said some people like the socializing and others were train enthusiasts. When I asked him what brought him back time over time he looked at me clearly and said simply "Service". I said thank you (for that service), he smiled, and that was the end of the conversation. Now this service is particularly valuable to me -- it lets Uly come home when he wants to and it let me visit him so I'm pretty grateful for it.
All day long I had been musing over "values". The way Allen and others have been using the word tells me that I have more to learn about value statements. Allen mentioned that a value was not of much use if it did not guide decision making. Jon Stewart recently said that if you compromise your values when the going gets tough (like on torture) they are not really your values, they are you hobbies.
On the other hand, the word "participation" has a lot of anger and emotion associated with it (my perception anyways). And there is a bit of the classic problem where the father or mom wants their son to have a cleaner room and bemoan their son's lack of "participation" in the cleaning process. The son doesn't think it is a participation problem, just someone else trying to impose their standards on him.
But I really get the word "service". That works for me. So maybe we did not have an angel card marked "Participation", but I ended up carrying it anyways -- and look what a nice gift it gave me.