the devil is round the corner

On Tuesday I had a lovely afternoon with my friend M. whom I hadn't seen in a few weeks as we had both been busy with other things. We talked a lot, had an early afternoon brunch, went for a walk in the sun, sat along the canal talking some more, and started trying to make our card for the Ulenkrug people much too late, so that we didn't finish it.
Talking with M. is always so comfortable - she is a very good listener as well as talker, she encourages people to talk, and we share a lot of common conceptions. I can imagine us two part of a life-project, an intentional community, one day. In the mean time however, one thing she said got me thinking on a track I don't like at all. She said she'd started calculating how much life cost once you're not a student anymore, and whether she would manage with a part-time job. The part-time job is where everything goes click. I decided for myself that I would not seek wage labour after my studies, nor freelance for that matter. And the solution for that is to move into an political intentional community.
M. on the other hand hasn't completely abandonned the idea of a Normal Job, although obviously she would prefer not being forced into these structures. The difference there is that she wants to stay in Berlin, and the structures for emancipating one's self from the wage system are not in place in the city. Not yet. And I started to realise that there are several projects I would like to contribute to organising, among others the ever attempted and for now abandonned "City-countryside-river project" (Stadt-Land-Fluss) - an intentional community with the river Spree linking a part in Berlin and a part in the countryside, the countryside community being in charge of producing food.

The group that was originally trying to implement the Stadt Land Fluss project eventually split up shortly after a suitable piece of land had been found and acquired north of Berlin. This piece of land is now used for another similar project producing non-commercial agricultural products (for now only potatoes and seed-oil, the project is still very new), i.e. agricultural goods that are not sold but shared and given in exchange of e.g. work on the farm or donations.

With our present Food Coop project to try and strengthen rural life in the region, I came to several ideas, including that of founding a non-commercial food-coop next year. And I just started appreciating the political energy and activity there is in Berlin, and how good it would be to contribute to the setting up of structures allowing people to live without having to separate their political principles from their private (i.e. non political) life.

And so it was that the devil promptly jumped on my right shoulder. What if I decided to stay in the city and set up such structures with M and other people? I would need a part-time job too. Part time, because full-time only robs one of precious time in exchange of unnecessary money. I don't like this idea.