About the Household As Ecology: Why Am I Here?

I currently live in a large house in uptown Waterloo with 5 other people. The people I live with are all different ages, but we share the common goal of intentional living. The question I always get asked is, "does that mean you all eat together?" No. It means that we share a common interest in developing better ways to live together in a household than we've known, which was a question that originated with, 'why do so many households experience so much grief over the damn dishes?' I'm fairly sure you've all experienced this. When I was moving out of residence I saw this household and thought, well that looks like a better option than moving into a household with students, even friends, where we're going to suffer through all kinds of living problems and not even be able to talk about them.