I've been working on a fiction idea lately that has left me thinking a lot about utopias. And I thought today that this might be an interesting thread for Fairfield Life.
Any number of authors have tried their hand at designing a fictional utopia, from Sir Thomas More's island to Aldous Huxley's. I would be interested in hearing about some of the characteristics that the seekers here on FFL (who, after all, have had some "hands on" experience in pursuing utopias) would design into a real-life utopia of their own. Assuming anyone is interested in sharing cool ideas for an aspect of life -- be it social, religious, health-related, education-related...whatever -- you'd want to see in your personal utopia, I'd love to keep the thread as positive as possible. In other words, rather than discussing the things we *wouldn't* want to see in our "inner perfect world," we could discuss a few of the things we *would* like to see in such a perfect world. They could be your own ideas or inter- esting ideas you read about in some work of fiction or in scripture or from any other source, be it spiritual or mundane. The first one I can think of is a very small thing, but remembering it recently has made me smile ever since, so I'll share it. On Huxley's "Island," (if I remember correctly...it's been over 35 years since I read it) they had trained the wild parrots to say "Karuna" or "Here and now, boys!" I really like that. As you walk through the jungle, every so often a bird- voice comes out of the trees to remind you to pay attention to here and now, or to the importance of kindness. My own utopian ideas are at this point still in flux, so I have little to share, except that I'd like to see a system of government that has taking care of its people -- *all* of its people, in terms of food, shelter, health care and education -- as its first and highest priority. I'll work on how I'm going to accomplish that in real life and get back to you later... :-)
