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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

If I were inclined to write, which I am decidedly not, and if I had any 
skills therein, which I decidedly do not, I'd write a book stealing most of 
Gene's 
title and format and call it "How to Find Your Ideal Country Mindset".  A 
more 
accurate title would be "How to Find Your Ideal Homesteading Mindset".  

Because in dealing with homesteading dialogs on this lists, other fora, and 
in many vis-a-vis enounters, the point most often missed is that 
homesteading, 
like happiness, sex, and enjoying beer, takes place primarily in your mind.

There are a number of items in this outline, but the one I want to bring up 
just now is that for the homesteading paradigm to be successful, one must 
first 
be comfortable with dealing in reality, with all artificial constructs set 
aside.  If you don't like reality, if you aren't comfortable with reality 
down 
close to the bone, you will not enjoy the homesteading expience and in fact 
have few prospects of success.

A tenure on a homestead will point out to the mind rather quickly the extent 
to which we float around in a fog of, to put it mildly "constructs", or to 
put 
it more bluntly "phoniness".  Nature does not tolerate phoniness.

I have leared a great deal over the past two or three years from two sets of 
blogs that I read every few days.  One set dealt with the housing bubble and 
the other with Peak Oil.  The blogs are peopled by experts in their fields 
and, 
fortunately, people with some pretty amazing prosaic skills.  I feel as if I 
could apply for some post graduate credit in geology, economics, and finance 
in the wake of all the reading and pondering I've done on these subjects via 
the internet writers.  I never post on those blogs.  Never.  Not even to ask 
a 
question.  If someone posts some opinion or interpretation of the facts and 
it 
is illogical or contrary to reality, they are eaten alive in a flash.  The 
dross is burned away and the usable information is what is left in the wake. 

As a lunatic fringe homesteader I appreciate this.  As time has passed and 
I've become older and more savvy, I spend more and more time contemplating 
the 
homestead, contemplating Nature, before I experiment with anything.  In the 
beginning I was full of impractical ideas.  Those ideas were realized and 
Nature 
either gave a mild nod in agreement or smashed it to bits.  Either way I 
always knew where I stood, at lest to the extent that I could rub the fog of 
phoniness from my eyes I knew where I stood.  

The sure path to failure is to stand in the fields or in the workshop or 
kitchen and say, "Boo hoo, Nature was mean to me.  She didn't honor and 
validate 
my idea."  Success is the penchant to put your idea on the auction block of 
reality and see if time is going to bid on it.  If it goes for a pitance or 
is a 
no sale, you must find that thrill of exhilaration within yourself that you 
have touched on something real and mysterious, something you did not know 
before, a clarity you did not hitherto enjoy.  Then wipe away the debris and 
put the 
next item up for cosmic sale.

Is Nature arrogant?  Is Nature a mean spirited bastard for acting this way?  
Utterly immaterial, that.  

The first chapter of my increasingly non-existent book would be on clearing 
away the fog of phoniness, to examine the constructs by putting them where 
the 
hammer blows of facts, logic, and reality are invited with a spirit of "Lay 
on, McDuff!"   Have you ever had a stack of compromised planks you were 
thinking 
about using for a building project about the farm?  Are they solid and sound 
enough?  Most rough carpenters will take the boards by one end and shake them 
like a whip and smack them to the ground.  If the board is sound, it will 
hold 
up.  If it is unsuitable even for the chicken coop or wood shed, it will 
break.  

People who live close to Nature, depend on Nature for the necessities tend to 
behave this way out of habit.  Think this idea is good? Let's test it!  Think 
this pole would make a good axe handle?  Lets see ... bang, smash, bend ... 
yes, it looks like it.

People who do not want to live close to reality avoid such as this at all 
costs.  I did computer records for a local music wholesaler for a number of 
years.  Employed there were all and sundry people from the music industy 
including 
several who had been studio musicians in Nashville and for some prominent 
bands.  They told tales that they got in whole mailbags full of cassette 
tapes (it 
was a while ago, it'd be CD's now of days) every day with someone who had the 
next hit song.  They said they would go through the stack, take out all the 
BASF and other quality tapes, erase them to use for other things, then throw 
the rest away.  BUT they would jot down the return address of every single 
one 
and sen the person an encouraging letter as to maintain their fan base.

At that same time I was acquainted with the proprietor of a curiosity shop 
who fancied himself a songwriter.  One day when I was visiting him, he pulled 
out the guitar and performed the song he had written years ago.  He told me 
he 
had written a letter to George Jones asking if George would look at his song. 
 
He got back a letter that said, "Sure, Hoss, send it along."  I noted, 
although my songwriting friend seemed unmoved by the fact, that it was a form 
letter. 
So I asked him what happened when he sent in the song.   Didn't know because 
he'd never sent it in.  "I just wasn't sure I was ready for what woud follow, 
deals, contracts, fame I'm not used to."   To this day he probably still 
holds 
onto that fond fantasy.

Nobody seeking the truth or seeking improvement is bothered by having their 
views quizzed and tested, quite the opposite in factm, they demand it.  That 
defensiveness is from people who want to hold onto their fond fantastic 
constructs, their fog of phoniness, at all costs.  

The ideal country mindest is devoid of PC.  When an idea, observation, or 
point of view is offered up, it is carved up like paring away the rotten spot 
on 
an apple, it is smacked into the ground like a plank to see if it is sound, 
all so that we can tell if there is anything to it that we might want to keep.

>From the ideal country mindset you cannot be over concerned that someone is 
going to like you if they take what you offer as their very own.  If it made 
them think or change their view or stance even a little, you may expect very 
little thanks for it.  Likewise you must be ready to take the pearl you find 
from 
mucking around in all those rotten oysters.  If you expect your pearl to come 
gift wrapped in one of those plush little boxes, you will find few pearls to 
be had without selling yourself to consumerism.

The homesteader reflects Nature. If you cannot handle that aspect of Nature, 
don't be a homesteader, in fact, don't even get into a discussion with one.


James