“Stupidity is a place of grace.” So says my dear friend Andrew and I hope he’s right. I’m feeling very stupid these days, in the true sense of the word — “stunned, dazed, or incoherent”. Clearly, of late, I have been all three.

And for that reason I think I will try to say, and write, relatively little for the next while, until I have something intelligent to say (in the sense of being “supported by evidence of its empirical validity”) rather than just something intuitive and conceptually interesting.

For the next while I will be reposting (with modest updates) some of my more enduring articles from the past five years. But first I will be posting my New Year’s Intentions (as distinct from New Year’s Resolutions).

I remain absolutely resolute (or perhaps I should say intentional) that my Purpose is to establish and nurture the establishment of Model Intentional Communities. The principles and competencies I think they might need or aspire to (including polyamorism) are completely negotiable, and will be arrived at by consensus of our members. I will respond briefly to the critics of this intention shortly, and will then move on — rather than debate the validity of my ideas endlessly, I think it makes sense for us to just begin, and discover whether they make sense, and whether they work, or not.

I have started a blog with my Second Life intentional community partner, and as our experimental community evolves you will be able to read about it, from the point of view of all its members, on this new ‘group’ blog. New articles on that blog will likely be cross-posted or cross-linked here. My goal is transparency, and our new blog will be a true journal of learning and discovery.

I am also resolute in my belief that the best way to approach and cope with all the challenges of our time is through Love, Conversation and Community, and specifically:

As a consequence, while I will be writing less on this blog, I will be engaging in more loving conversations, one-to-one and in community. If you want to be part of that, please sign up for gmail and email me at dave.pollard (at) gmail.com; we will be able to see each other’s online status for instant message conversations (and, depending on your operating system, VoIP voice-to-voice conversations as well). I have come to prefer the latter, because voice-to-voice conversations are more iterative and provide richer clues as to meaning (voice inflection etc.) than mere text. I will make as much time available as possible for such conversations but you’ll have to be patient with me, because I only have so many hours in the day for conversation, and may have to ‘schedule’ something with you rather than (what would be more ideal) be able to converse with you immediately and ex tempore. I am not interested in debates or adversarial conversations — I find them a waste of time and energy. If you are willing to entertain a discussion full of “yes…and” rather than “yes…but” expressions, then I want to talk with you.

I am not abandoning this blog. It has over 2500 pages of material in it and I will add to it as often as I have something new to say — not new abstract ideas or promising models but new learnings, discoveries and experiences from actual practice that you, dear readers, may hopefully find valuable. This will include posting conversations that I have with others (in text and/or podcast form).

You’ll get a better sense of where I’m going in my upcoming New Year’s Intentions article.

“Everybody sails alone, but we can travel side by side.”
     – KT Tunstall, Heal Over, a truly amazing song you can find on YouTube

Hope to see you, dear friends and lovers, on our journey, nearby, within voice range, and perhaps close enough to touch, to feel. A journey oflove, peace, understanding and joy.

“Not farewell, but fare forward, voyagers.”
     – TS Eliot, Four Quartets