Tapescript Journey 6 part four


My guide explains how PORENA came to be the way it is, from a work and technology driven community to the sustainable radiality- based phenomenon it is today.
“A series of books came out. It started with Porena Tales. The books got everyone talking about abolishing work, etc.

Before you knew it, the idea was accepted and people started trying the principles the books outlined.”

“Whoa, you’re going too fast - which of the principles was that then?” I ask.

“Well, it’s hard to nail it all down into a timeline exactly. The idea that a society’s footprint should not be more than the biosphere can stand was the first.

Then, following on from that, multi-functionality of living areas along with minimising the impact on the biosphere, like not putting in stuff that will need cleaning up later.

This caused us to ponder how we had got into this position in the first place. Work came up as an explanation, and money. If you get convinced you need money in order to survive, then you need to get money by working. That’s OK, but it can get out of hand. If left with a choice of doing a high-environment impact action or starving, people chose the former. So that led people to accept that neither work nor money were doing the job they were first intended for. Both were working in a dysfunctional way to encourage high-footprint activities.

The five stresses started to be accepted. As people realised they were being stressed unnecessarily they started growing food everywhere. And then working from home more. And then some people tried community experiments with abolishing work altogether. As that became socially acceptable, more and more joined the movement. Companies and especially local authorities started opening up to share knowledge and skills and people started coming along to get involved.

Everyone got involved in working to manage the five stresses: shelter, food, toxicity, social, physical harm.

At that point, the radiality scheme was started, and reliance on work was reduced as transport costs went down.

We’re still evolving, the rotating city is the latest step in the path.”


“That’s great!” I say. “Who was it who wrote these books?”

“You keep asking that,” my guide replies. “What puzzles me is that you don’t remember – it was you, yourself.”

End of tapescript Journey Six part four.