Zendik

Sorry about the swearing.

And I know you're just pushing buttons, dalamar. I get annoyed when people suggest that it's possible to freeload off the Zendiks.

When I was a Zendik, I was told that it cost $50 per month, per person to feed the group. Again, this was 1991-'93. I don't know how accurate that estimate was, or if it included things other than food (toothpaste, tampons, toilet paper, and soap). Some higher-ups got meat and specialty items in their diets, but communal meals were almost always rice-and-beans vegetarian (if they were vegan, they could have gotten this cost even lower). Keep in mind that they're non-profit-- we got a lot of donations of food and other supplies, and we paid no taxes.

Even I, a shitty salesman, could make $50 in one day selling magazines on the streets of Austin. We also sold animals and pecans, and I'm guessing that people paid for the Zendik demolition services as well. During the two years I spent there, I received two new items of clothing: a pair of running shoes and a sportsbra. I also received a hairbrush and toothbrush.

You can access their tax forms online (it's a legal requirement for nonprofit groups) and see how much they spend on human health care (which would be the other major expense):
http://www.guidestar.org/index.jsp
Search "Zendik" for their financial profile. You have to register with the site to access PDFs of the Zendik tax forms, but it's free.

They could be lying about their finances.. but it looks like they're actually just a bunch of fuckups.

And I wouldn't have needed the running shoes and the sportsbra if we weren't forced to run two miles several times per week. So, yeah.. they could save some money there, too.

The one time I saw a doctor, they made me ask my father to pay for it. I think it was $30 or so. He paid.

No I am not just trying to push peoples buttons. I am however playing the devils advocate a bit in an effort to ascertain the truth about this place.

I am actually grateful for this thread. Before I found it I was considering going there. Now I am not sure anymore.

Don’t worry about the anger. I have felt the same in my own situation. Having been there I also know how my personal anger can color my views of things. All I was trying to do was get people past the anger.

Haha..

Oh dear, memory lane..

I remember Arol lecturing the group during Interpersonal because she felt that the toilet paper bill was too high. She instructed we ladies to wipe (after urinating) with only TWO SQUARES of (one-ply) toilet paper. Forever afterward my hands were covered in piss.

p.s.
dalamar, your devil's advocacy is well-done, and I think your posts are rad!

Just thinking about chucking hay bails makes my back hurt. This task should be an event in one of those “World’s Strongest Man” competitions that they show on ESPN at 3 in the morning. We had Sundays off in my day...and Zendik became a sort of ghost town on Sundays, as everyone disappeared to do their own thing. This was a relief, but at the same time, a bit depressing, because it seemed like being a Zendik meant always either doing official Zendik stuff (work, meals, watching “Wulf raps,” etc.) or being by yourself. The funny thing is, my fondest memories of Zendik involve those rare moments in between (when we were not doing collective Zendik stuff, and I was not just doing my own thing), but when we were doing decidedly un-Zendik things together (like the dance parties, or shooting pool, or watching movies), when everyone stopped being a Zendik for awhile and started acting like normal human beings...

In the year that I was there, the Zendiks allotted exactly $4 for my personal use...two pairs of shorts, for $2 each at Goodwill. Between you and me, when I was out on the street, selling mags and tapes (which I was also terrible at, because of my lack of overall charisma, but also because I couldn’t force my mouth to say certain things, like “your lie is your pain,” etc.), I’d sneak a buck or two from my earnings to buy smokes. (Though my crime was mitigated, I think, by the fact that I shared the tobacco with the other Zendik “secret smokers”). Don’t tell the Zendiks, or they might come knocking on my door for the $20 or so that went to my secret stash of Bugler Tobacco over the course of a year.

Nez stole hundreds and didn't even get kicked out for it!

...but he was fucking Arol, after all...

It sounds, Red Lentil, like the Farm was a bit more hardcore in your day (no days off, making people run, toilet paper rationing). On the other hand, being a Zendik meant living according to an overall pattern where the leaders from on high would send the little people some new directive which would suddenly make life a lot more difficult ("from now on, everyone has to do X"). Actually, I liked running, because it meant that I could be alone for at least 30 minutes or so each day. It's very possible, by the way, that I met you, though you'd never remember it, because I stopped by the Farm (for a day) on a road trip with my friends in the summer of '92 (this is how I found out about the place initially...I returned a few years later after I dropped out of grad school). And yes, they made me dig ditches on that day...

Yeah, they were trying to become self-sufficient on the Texas farm, so there was a lot more farmwork to do. The population dwindled down to 24 at one point during my stay, which made the workload that much heavier.

Zendik Farm, in my day at least, was poorly organized. Arol was the one calling the shots-- if she says we plant wheat here, we plant it here, no questions asked. She believes (as a Zendik) that women are biologically determined to run the world (read her essay "On Men and Women", available on the Zendik website), which means that she carries her leadership role into areas that she knows little or nothing about. We wasted a lot of time, energy, labor. Why keep a herd of goats so large that we THROW MILK AWAY? We had a draft horse which was used for pulling farm equipment, but why the hell did we keep non-working horses when we could (supposedly) barely afford to feed ourselves? Why did we have 30 pet dogs? Why did we sell our (nutritionally superior) pecans to buy peanuts?

And on and on..

The same sort of tragic waste that happens in any other top-down power structure.. except that this one sells itself as a glorious alternative to all of that.

Of course, I'm a fucking anarchist.
With a filthy mouth.

Originally Posted by Red Lentil

Ever load hay bales onto a moving truck in the noonday sun? Oh yeah--and then get accused of being a dilletante because you weren't lifting those bales with enough enthusiasm?

Yes, I do have an idea how heavy those things are. In all honesty (that is the zendik way right?) I probably could not lift one of those things. Most likely they would kick me out in just a few days (if I lasted that long) from my inability to do heavy labor. Which really is a shame because there are a lot of other things I am good at that would benefit them.

So there are some closet smokers among the zendiks. I had a feeling there might be. I know people who quit hard drugs but, you would have to pry their sigs from their cold dead fingers. Then they will come back and haunt you from the grave for taking them.

Any way glad you liked my posts and I did not ruffle your feathers too much.

She believes (as a Zendik) that women are biologically determined to run the world (read her essay "On Men and Women", available on the Zendik website),

Yes I just read that one. She does not sound like she likes men too much. I thought both were supposed to be equal?