outside guides

It was in the nature of the InfoCurtain that the modern world could easily pass through it to visit Tuckers Corner, but it was virtually impossible for Humanists to breach the InfoCurtain to visit them.  

They barely had money to afford modern transportation, no credit cards or digital certificates to buy anything in the modern world even if they could afford it, no understanding of how the modern world even worked.  

However, Humanist society needed some people within the community who could interact with the modern world.  

These people became known as Outside Guides.   If anyone in Tuckers Corner has a need to interact with the outside world for any reason, they go to an Outside Guide who helps them through the maze of digital complexity that is required.  

Here's Eusebio talking about Spirit Guides and Outside Guides:

"I guess it says something about our society that we have Spirit Guides and Outside Guides.   A guide to help you find your way in your inner being, and a guide to help you find your way in the outside world.  

If you asked anyone in Tuckers Corner which guide was more important to them, they'd tell you it was their Spirit Guide.  

But, the truth is that without a Spirit Guide, we'd still do a pretty good job of finding our way in our inner world, because everything in our society prepares us for that.  

On the other hand, without an Outside Guide, we couldn't last an hour outside Tuckers Corner.  

We'd be like an ant separated from its nest, walking around hopelessly lost, in random circles."

year away

Separated as they are from the modern world, various Humanist communities have still managed to remain in contact with each other.  

In fact, Eusebio and his fellow Humanists know more about their other communities in Argentina or Australia than they know about their d-human neighbors down the road from Tuckers Corner.  

The early Humanists ensured that this would be the case by instituting a uniquely Humanist custom.   It's called Year Away.

Year Away is a straightforward concept which means exactly what it says.   It's a year spent away, staying with another Humanist community somewhere else in the world.  

You can take your Year Away any time in the first five years after your Vision Day.  In the early decades of the Humanist movement, the Year Away was easy to coordinate.  

Every year, young people from each of the worldwide communities would choose where they wanted to spend their year.   Families in the host community would volunteer as "host families" to look after them when they were visiting.   Then, the group of young people who were going to a particular community would simply get on a plane and arrive there.

That all changed in the United States communities after the InfoCurtain fell over them.  

In other parts of the world, the Humanist communities are less separated from their environment, and the informational and economic disparities are less severe.   But, in the United States, the notion of air travel became increasingly difficult and expensive.  

Nevertheless, Humanists still cling to this tradition, even though the cost of it now eats up about twenty-five percent of Tuckers Corner's annual budget.   The travel is coordinated by the Outside Guides, who get passports and airline tickets for the group taking their Year Away, and take them to the airport in Albany.

Year Away is a wonderful tradition because of its cross-cultural fertilization.   It prevents the Humanists getting stuck in one way of thinking.  

At any point in time, folks at Tuckers Corner have dozens of young Humanists from Wales, Brittany, Argentina and Australia , not to mention the other parts of the United States , sharing their knowledge and their ways of doing things.  

It keeps each Humanist community fresh with new ideas, and at the same time, it builds strong and lifelong bonds between them.   Not surprisingly, there are frequent marriages between Humanists from different communities as a result of the Year Away.  

This is something that's great for the Humanist movement, but very difficult for the parents of the son or daughter who choose to spend the rest of their lives in another Humanist community far away from where they grew up.

[Read how Eusebio lost his only daughter, Sally, to a marriage with Gareth from Wales, who was staying at Tuckers Corner during his Year Away - PDF  HTML].