Homestead mailing list

[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

All may be true(I really hope not, though, especially on your #1 reason
for decline), but I equate being a member of an e-list to all other
relationships in life.  You have to work at communication.  You have to
make time to tell your spouse how you feel; you have to take time to
pick up a phone and call your friends and family; and you have to make
time to contribute to an email list.  Anything short of that is taking
without giving, and that usually ends in a broken relationship-maybe a
divorce, or in this case, an unsub.

B

Gene GeRue wrote:
> On Feb 1, 2010, at 5:23 PM, Marie McHarry wrote:
>
> > No. It's just been really, really quiet. I've noticed that usually
> > in the depths of winter when homesteading isn't so busy this list
> > turns to political discussion. Now that that topic has become
> > something that most of us what to ignore, I think everyone is
> > hibernating.
>
> Marie, I think there are three primary parts to the decline of the 
> homestead list.
>
> 1. As with TMEN and other gardening/country living mags, once the 
> subjects have been covered multiple times, it is challenging to go 
> back to them and find something new to say. And it is tedious to
> teach the same class over and over. The teachers tire and retire.
>
> 2. There are so many other lists available to each of us that with 
> slight effort we find a more perfect fit. I have found one, for 
> instance, consisting mostly of people who are bright, articulate, 
> accomplished and respectful. We have adult conversations. The list 
> owner has a light hand but will not tolerate personal attacks and put
>  downs.
>
> 3. Politics. I let myself get sucked into the political discussion 
> here, which started out somewhat reasonable and devolved into
> hysteria and babble.
>
> There is another issue that both amuses and troubles me. I thought
> the Internet would be the library of the world with all wisdom
> immediately at hand and, more, that it would help lift each of us to
> our maximal level. Alas, the wisdom has become deeply diluted by our
> human need to feel important. We easily find something new, embrace
> it, erroneously think we have become instant experts. And then we
> broadcast it willy nilly and feed upon the responses. The library
> becomes cluttered with The National Enquirer.
>
> Perhaps it is a sign of our apparently deteriorating time. Major
> media thrives on death, disaster and dilemma. We fight back feebly
> with our e-mails and our blogs: no, not me, not my life, my life is
> fine, see, look at all I am doing, look at all I know, look how smart
> I have become. It seems to me that we have become unbalanced. Our
> focus has fanned and blurred. Like Stella, we need to get our groove
> back.
>
> And the beat goes on.
>
> Gene
>
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--
Many of our greatest American thinkers, men of the caliber of Thomas
Jefferson, Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain, William James, and John Muir, have
found the forest an effective stimulus to original thought.
Bob Marshall