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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Oh my, the sky is falling. Or is it?
  • Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 14:21:20 EST




> I can't think of any good reason to live as I did growing up unless it
> becomes necessary. My homesteader mentality is to be prepared to deal with
> all potential problems if they arise, but to enjoy what we have while we
> have it. To focus on the negatives is to lead a negative life with a big,
> dark cloud overhead where there might be sunshine.
>

One man's negative is another man's heaven. The biggest darkest cloud I can
possibly imagine would be to spend years at a time away from this farm. Here
in the midst of spring gardening I'm looking at the effects of 16 years of
soil building and how far, and yet how little, it has come. I'm well aware
of
my middle-age and my mortality. How many more years can enjoy working the
farm
this way? I don't know. But I take a great deal of pleasure in living
modestly, working the place with horse and hand tools, and depending as
absolutely
little as possible on the whims of the economy at large and what it offers.
Doing that means I get to live HERE, whereas an alternate plan would put me
commuting hours a day or worse, pursuing a job and living hundreds of miles
from
here and plotting and scheming like the Kunta Kinte character in Roots to get
back to my farm all the while I grow older and my escape gets to be less and
less likely. That would be a negative life personified.

Enjoying "what we have while we have it" is a double entendre. For some of
us the cataclysmic end of the oil culture would be a good thing, not a
negative, dark cloud. It would mean that a lot more people would have the
opportunity
to lead meaningful, productive lives rather than floating parasitically on a
tide of oil, turning and flowing wherever that tide drifts them.

James




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