Author: Philo

human

Letting Go

Early in the morning, every morning, the sky presents a new show.  The lights, the trees, the snow, the clouds play out a story complete with characters.  Sitting in front of the newly founded fire in the wood burning stove, the coffee is hot and strong, and black as the night before.

Taking a sip, the sun begins its pageantry through the leafless trees.  Everyday begins this way: summer, fall, winter, and spring.  Now it is winter here on the homestead; and it is cold.  The fire begins warming up the room as the thoughts begin to fill my head.  The past taking up much of the past, and the present taking up much of the day, now they both make a place for the future.

Another sip of coffee, the sun continually changing the sky and the rooster crowing in the background, the beauty is astounding, and yet not enough.  It is quiet up here, still like silence on the sea; a car goes by, the same car as yesterday and the day before.

When silence is ubiquitous every sound counts.

Another sip, another thought as I wait for the second car that comes some minutes later.  All of this will be missed, and as the night lets go to the daylight, we will also let go of another day.

I.

The coffee was strong and the morning was early.  The fire took the bite out of the air as the light began hovering over the tree tops.  Everything was beautiful.

The day went by quickly without notice.  Snow on the ground covered the ice.  The cold was less than days before but the grey covered the sky as usual.

For a bit the sun showed its orange glow and for a minute the winter put on hold.  However, the winter will win in December as Christmas crawls our way.

The night came upon us and the cold continued its dreary journey.  The night sky gleaned and glistened with stars and nothingness while the fire warmed the house and the tequila warmed my throat.

Boredom

Much of the work done when we care becomes tedious and it is at these times that we notice, that we begin to think that what we do does not matter.  That is a mistake.  All things, all jobs, all activities are tedious when we delve into them in depth.  That is the nature of being in depth, of understanding the nature of doing things.

The tediousness does not keep our little voice busy; it does not keep our egos at bay;  tediousness is boredom with a different name.  Only that when we do something indepth we cannot afford boredom.  That is the secret of success and perhaps even contentedness: to realize that all things are tedious at some level.  Tediousness is not the problem, it is our attitude towards it that is.

First, to be content we must be motivated by something other than profit.  We must be motivated by the virtue of tediousness, the acceptance of boredom.  In order to do this we do lose something: our ego, our un-admitted reliance upon what others think.  We all care, but perhaps simply about the wrong things.

To enjoy the boredom in our lives is a learned character trait.  We dismiss this this simple possibility at our own peril.

The Experiment

And what is an experiment?  A test a consideration of possible outcomes.  We delve into the unknown without expectations, at least we tell ourselves that.  But secretly the expectations are there; we hide them with care and hold them gently but in the dark.

The experiment is over and already a new one has begun.  Never realizing this the scientist lives his life deluded by the thought of learning and hoping for the intellect that he knows will never come.

The premises leading to conclusions which then become premises which then become conclusions.  The experiment is a math problem that asks for the largest number.  The tests simply arbitrary sets.  And yet the scientist continues to look, to look for what?

And so, with one experiment coming to an end another one begins.  In the time that it takes to swing his attention from one to another the scientist notices a gleam of freedom from the tediousness of the tests; a faint ray of light, a possible answer.

It is not reasonable to expect outcomes that are impossible.  It is not possible that knowledge can never come from learning.  But, that is the experiment and the answers are what they are.

Happiness Revisited

I.

There is a turkey hen that has shown up on the farm.  She sleeps in front of the hen coop after eating a bit of corn that I throw out every morning for the hens.  She has evidently lost her flock and has taken the hens as her own.  Sleeping on the snow covered ground I look upon her with pity, and I feel sadness.

She’s not hurt, but it is difficult to believe that there is not something awry.  And so I feed the hens and she runs to the back, coming back around when I leave.  I wish her the best, but cannot guarantee anything.

II.

It is cold outside and although the sun shines the temperature reminds everything that winter is upon us.  The summer is a far away memory and the spring is something of an illusion.  Remnants of the fall lay covered in ice and snow.  There is always longing for the spring, and from the spring the summer.

This longing for something in the future is, as Buddhists claim, a cornerstone of suffering, and suffer we must because we are human and that is what we do.  Perhaps the happiness that we seek is the time between what we think and how we feel.

III.

The finish work around the house is coming to an end, and with it the realization that there is more to come.  Just as the destruction of the old to make room for the new happens, the realization that the new will sooner than later become old and the cycle will be repeated.

Living our lives looking for newness is innately a failure as there is simply no such thing.  Life is not new and never has been.  Life is old…very old and those ideas that we would give our lives for are repeated for the sake of the illusion of happiness as they must be.

Be Revolutionary. Be Ethical.

The act of raising animals for food ought to be bucolic; the killing aside the act is truly peaceful if done ethically.  Even the act of killing ought not cause suffering. To live self-sufficiently both acts are necessary; necessary in the case that eating meat is necessary.

The packaged product in grocery stores around the world does not, however, do justice to the corporate acts of greed and malice that cause so much pain and misery to the animals that we eat all the while creating the illusion of peaceful farms on hillsides.

If there were justice in the world, then each and every person who puts a piece of meat in their mouth ought to be walked through a CAFO, a commercial egg production barn or  be a part of raising and  “processing” the commercial meat birds that make up most of our Sunday chicken dinners.

These are not acts of farmers raising animals for food.  Tyson, Purdue and many other “food producers” are liars and snake oil salesmen.  They cause and create pain and misery; they do so in the name of profit and capitalism as do the “farmers” who allow themselves to be slaves to such monsters.

Trying to raise meat chickens, all of this comes to a head when the birds, genetically bred specifically for meat, become ill, cannot grow feathers fast enough to keep up with their ever-growing bodies, and cannot walk because of genetic defects in their legs.

Grow a tomato and start a revolution.

Be as ethical as possible and truly change the world.

But first, we must give up the illusions and the easy answers.

Be revolutionary; be ethical.

 

The Spirit of Work

Cup of coffee in hand and looking out over the fields, it is difficult to muster the motivation to give up the fire and go out to work.  But, as always, there is work.  This is not bad thing, it is just that the grey mornings and rainy weather have a tendency to dampen the spirit of working.

That spirit to work, that drive to do something, something meaningful defines who we are.  Work is neither a right or a bane.  Rather, it is that intentional act to give meaning.  We do not have a right to work, we must simply work in order to have rights.  Work is not a heavy load to bear with a dreary mind, work is what we do no matter our attitude towards it.

There is always work, and work can always wait.  But why?  Why make the meaning in our lives wait for sunny days or better dispositions?  For those who do not understand the spirit of work, we are too busy.  For those who misunderstand the spirit of work, we are not busy enough.

And so the coffee finished and a final log put on the fire, I don the overalls and you (perhaps) don a suit and we both work in the spirit of making meaning in our lives one minute at a time.

Unexpected Places

Happiness from the most unexpected places, even for moments in a day.  There is a certain look in the eyes of creatures that if we learn to read them let us know that we are not the only ones that experience the world in ways that make us wonder.

When I go out to the workshop I must often wander my way through hens running for a snack.  I pet a few as the clucks of anticipation follow me to the barn.  The younger pullets are sometimes like the dog that follows me around the house when I’m in.  Her comfortably perched on my bed after the morning walk.

The cat, not to be left out, nibbles a bit of food and then runs to the door to roll in the dust of the farm; old tree scratching posts and sun spots offering the warmth of the world.

At the corner store.

“I love that smell.”  she says as she hands me my sugar for the bees.

“What smell is that?”  I ask.

“The smell of wood; you’ve been working with wood.”

I nod and tell her that I have and I notice that happiness comes from the most unexpected places.

Simple

Work is not complicated.  Today is not complicated.  We simply must do what must be done.  The morning was started with the dog and evolved to some carpentry.  The sun out, became more beautiful as the day slowly grew.  The wood cut, and lunch.

Out came the chicks; the sun would do them good.  Enjoying the sunny day the chicks played and slept, ate and drank.  Simple times; simple life.

The afternoon started slowly, the tractor in place and the chipper hooked up.  The brush awaited.  The chipper started and the chipping began.  One pile, and then another.  Almost Buddhist in its meditation: the brush goes in and chips come out.

The chips themselves simple in their creation.  They will start as hen house bedding, and the compost and then on into the garden to start the cycle again.  One day growing a tree that will be cut and used, even to its smallest branches.

The piles of chips, sitting in the sunshine, and a shovel.  The old trailer brought to life but first the hitch attached to the tractor.  The work is hard and the day is beautiful: both simple in their very nature.

The trailer full of chips and the stored for the winter.  The day is simple; work is not complicated.  As it should be; as it should be.

 

Finish Work

When all else is done, there is finish work.  The details that make a house a home; it is the same details that make life worth living.  But finish work takes time; there are many pieces to be placed, to be sanded slightly, to be fit snug in their place.

Finish work is quiet and it takes time, most often it takes much more time than we might believe.  But finish work is what we walk into each and every day and each and every time we walk into a room.  It is the finish that we see.

Carpentry is life and the finish work that we begin is reliant upon the work we’ve put into our lives in those years that seem to rush by and at the same time slow to a crawl.  In our youth we build a house, sometimes hurriedly, and when we get older we cannot understand why the base boards don’t miter quite right or why the casing won’t quite meet the wall.

In our age and years of living we can no longer rush but are now slowed by the weight of time and it is then we are faced with the finish work in what we have built.  Bad habits show and new habits form even without our knowing.

But it is in the finish that we learn that good enough is not nearly good enough for the finish work that we have to do.