behavioural momentum
by Matthias •When building / starting a new community, a main challenge arises. It is that we are influenced and moulded by our past environment. We have been exposed to that environment for a very long time. Our way of being, our behaviours, our thoughts, our way of seeing, is for the biggest part matching that environment.
Thus, if one enters into a new community / environment one brings these internal qualities / behaviours that are greatly influenced by a lived modern life. All those behaviours have momentum and do not change over night. They must change as they most likely will not match the desired new culture. Fortunately, they can be pruned / redirected and new ones can be cultivated. This does takes time, commitment and effort.
When entering, for example, a tribe's culture that is still alive today, it is a slightly different story. The culture has been formed, even though you do not match it behaviourally, the culture present in all people and things around you help you much faster to make those internal changes. Similar to an unsocialised dog being introduced back into a pack. The continuous interactions of the whole pack are guiding and nudging the dog towards matching behaviour.
When starting a new community project, the desired culture is not present. Let's presume that everyone knows clearly what the to-aim-for culture looks and feels like. Thus apart from the cultural target, the reinforcement / reflection of that desired culture through others and things is not present. Unlike the unsocialised dog, there is no pack that nudges the person back into alignment.
In that sense, and through my experience, when people start a new community, the reinforcement that a present culture would bring is lacking. As a result there is no binding of behaviour and the known world culture and behaviours surface and perpetuate easily.
The idea of dropping a bunch of people into a paradise will most likely result in those people making a mess again. Because the internal qualities and behaviours tend to overpower the passive qualities of that environment.
And thus our behavioural momentum will make sure we start doing again what we always have done. It runs deep.
So it is two fold. One is the lack of aim, that can translate into a lack of a deep vision. To cultivate that from the friction of our past and then for a bunch of people have that as a shared goal.
Second is the cultivation of a new self that is matching that intended vision.
Both are challenging for sure.
One of many ways that can help influence that challenge in a positive direction is the power of environment