philosophy

The Lowest Common Denominator

Often and unfortunately our conversations concerning what we do land upon the lowest perch of human achievement: that of measuring all accomplishments by their economic consequences. This is what I refer to as the lowest common denominator. I cannot accept that the ultimate consideration of our acts is monetarily important at all. When discussing new movements in farming for example, as we are seeing in this country (the US) today, I cannot imagine that the people involved in the agricultural movement are involved only for economic gains and monetary profits.

I do not consider the profit received from my garden, and from buying locally produced meats to be measured monetarily. Rather, the rewards that I get from knowing where my food comes from and how it was treated overrides any economic cost. I would argue that those of us who take pride in learning new skillsets and in understanding concepts that society tends to take for granted are not motivated by possible profits, but by personal gains in knowledge, in peace of mind, in the understanding that what we do can have a virtuous aspect that cannot be bought and sold.

I would suggest that the food-movement not consider itself by the judgment of others that can only understand or are only interested in monetary motivations. It is difficult not to do so, especially when being considered from a public point of view. The phrases “there is no money in it” with regard to small-farming enterprises is easily dismissed with closer inspections of the facts. The argument that small-farms are in fact more profitable than large, agri-businesses if the subsidies to such businesses are taken out of the equation are beside the point. More important to the point is that most small-farm enterprises are not motivated by money alone. The point is that in not relying upon agricultural subsidies, small farms are more autonomous, offer a more honest product, and are not held accountable by faceless stockholders but by local consumers that many know by name.

While it is true that to live in this society, money is a necessary component; it is not true that money is the most important component. This viewpoint has led us to the deplorable situations that we find ourselves in today both in and outside of agriculture. The small-farming movement that seems ubiquitous in the country today reminds both those who are brave enough to venture out and those who are thoughtful enough to support such operations that money is the least important of all aspects of our lives. It is by the standards of bravery, of thoughtful action, of honesty and honest work that we ought to judge ourselves and expect others to judge us by.

While we cannot often fight the filth of large agribusiness we can battle the ignorance that allows such business to flourish. However, I would argue that we cannot do so by judging ourselves and what we do by the lowest common denominator. There is so much more that we are motivated by other than money. It is important for us involved in this movement to remember this fact and remind others that money is not always worth the trouble.

The Limitation of Money

When faced with decisions that have ultimate implications for your happiness, it is necessary to consider that happiness from as many different perspectives as possible, not just the economic perspective. Otherwise we become defined by the narrow and limiting perspective of money, not the actual limitations that we have. Perhaps, we must consider, it is more useful to make less money. As un-American as this may seem, our happiness as individuals and as a nation seems to be at stake, but not for the reasons that we might believe.

The more dependent upon money we become, the more impoverished we become. I am realizing that the ability to fend for myself, to provide for myself, and to be motivated not by the usefulness of my ability to make money but by the usefulness of my abilities is providing the richness of life that I need, the perspective that I need to be happy. It is indeed true that money cannot buy happiness. In fact, often times it purchases discontent.

For example, my wife said something to me that has stuck. She grew up on an eight-generation farm in Europe. She remembers having no money, but always having enough to do and enough to eat. The fear of poverty is still with her, but through our discussions she has come to realize that the poverty that her family endured was not because of the farm, but because of the motivation to make money. To farm, to homestead is to give up on our dependency upon money. However, in giving up on our dependency upon money, we do not become impoverished, but enriched.

As backward as this may seem to many, it is true. I am learning to live without money is unrealistic but only because I am realizing the limitations of my abilities. Money does not provide independence, but only dependence upon those with the abilities that I lack. It is not living without money that is unrealistic; it is living without knowing your own limitations.

A homestead provides ample opportunity for experiencing limitations, limitations that money cannot conquer. In cities across this nation I do not believe that it is the lack of money that is problematic, but only the lacking realization that we are limited. We cannot “do” what we want to “do” if we do not know how to “do” it. We can “think” what we want to “think” if we do not know how to “think”. In fact, I believe that money as a sole motivator lessens the ability to realize our own limitations and in doing so gives us a false sense of security; I have certainly experienced that in my own life.

I have also experienced the frustration of my own ignorance and short-comings with regard to my own limitations. In rebuilding a 1939 Farmall F-20 I learned that it will not start simply because it is supposed to start. It is the same with money actually. Simply because money is supposed to be able to buy you happiness does not mean that it actually will.

Box of Bugs: Chapter 2

It’s been two months since I became a beekeeper, and yesterday I ended my stint as a beekeeper. I still have the bees, make no mistake, but yesterday I decided to quit feeding them. You see, in the beginning when you buy a package of bees they have nothing but the box you give them. To give them a head start, you feed them sugar water. Yesterday I took the feeder off the hive since they have grown significantly. Now they forage for their own food as bees should. It was difficult: becoming a bee-watcher rather than a beekeeper. I worry about them. I know that I shouldn’t because they are bugs that forage for food; that’s what bees do.

But nevertheless, my mind won’t let go. They are “my” bees after all. It seems that I have a relationship with each of the 30,000 or so bees that must live in the two-deep hive that they have made home. Although I know that it is impossible, I still can’t get around the hope that they know me. The have no such thoughts, I know. All of this anthropomorphism is tiring, and yet I know that when I am done writing this I will go out back to visit them.

Yesterday they bearded the front of the box as it was hot, and as bees are apt to do; and yesterday I worried and fretted. This morning I sat in my chair outside the hive with coffee and watched as the hive came to life. Perhaps this is the life of that which I have become. It is true that it is simply a box of bugs as I have written previously, but it is a box of bugs that is full of mystery and muster a fascination that I have not had in a while. I want us to understand each other, but realistically they are barely aware of me. They do what bees do and I, well I watch what bees do.

When I open the hive see the amazing amount of work that they do, both as individuals and as a hive I am dumfounded and they continue to work. Work defines the bee. I cannot help but be a little envious of such a life: doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, for no other reason than it needs to be done. What simplicity. What directed significance; and all in six weeks or so during the summer. And now I step back and let them be what they are naturally. It is nothing to them and a major step for me.

In my determined trek to be self-sufficient I am finding that I am the most dependent of all creatures when a simple bug can teach me freedom by doing nothing more than that which it does so flawlessly. Maybe I am worried not about the bees and my feeding them, but about myself as I slowly strip away the false sense of independence replacing it with the very real sense of awareness that it is me that needs to learn to do what needs to be done, when it needs to done, for no other reason than it needs to be done. I continue to learn from a box of bugs, and am humbled to do so.

The Workshop Universe Pt. III (Edited)

Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8)

The Big Bench Bang, then the year after the bench was built it is claimed in the tradition of mythology that most of the tools present were in place, had a place and were all accounted for. Of course, this is just a myth because looking at the place now it really does seem impossible. Five years later, the spread of the universe accumulates in the form of an electric welder and the first and only cleaning on record is applied. Organization and then entropy ensues afterwards. Ten years later an assortment of what is now the stuff of the universe is acquired: wrenches, ratchet sets appear and the space between appears as blackness, cleaning is but a faded memory. Fifteen years after the Big Bang, the gas welder appears from the nothingness and afterwards the black hole appears spitting forth hand tools from one end and sucking up all that comes within its reach, cleaning becomes a myth for some and a wish for others. Shelving falls and it and all its contents lay untouched for two years until by sheer force and will organization fights the chaos of the Universe; the act of cleaning is outlawed by the creator himself. There was a few wars fought in defense of organization and a simple wash but all were quashed in the name of chaotic order. There are some that ask about the time before the Big Bench Bang and the answer is simple: it was a workshop for the wagons and horses. Another little side-use was the slaughtering of pigs. It is in fact where I learned to do such things.

Pigs have lost their lives in the Universe long before its inception. Actually, since about 1934 pigs have been slaughtered here. The war-grounds for pork is marked territory with the blood and grease of man and pig. The times that the author was involved in the wholesale fight for meat a large, round metal bowl was used; a left-over from the second world war, a “horn-mine” that was found by the father of the creator of the universe (yes, the creator has a father) on the nearby beach but before that a wooden cask was used to hold the hot water that cleaned the carcass before the hair was burnt off the skin. It is neither a pretty sight or a quaint smell that ensues when pigs are slaughtered and both are permanent parts of the workshop. The pig is killed, hung and bled. Then parted while cats and dogs claw over the innards and the grandfather tool (the axe) is put to use to half the carcass. The head is fought over while entrails are dragged out into the darkness of space by cats and dogs alike. All of this happens within the workshop leaving the place with a different kind of smell. I wonder if because water is used if this is counted as a cleaning.

Today the shop is off-limits to any hired help because of unknown realities and time-warp related worries. It continues to grow both in sight and smell. The black hole grows, sucking in the shelving at times, and at other times parts and tools but it nevertheless continues to exist; a parody to existence itself, a stubborn trophy waved in the face of the belief in design and order. Both and anachronism and a study in the future of mankind itself, the Universe of the shop defies definition and yet defines itself as the matrix of change and the canvas of the future. Entropy ensues and it is good.

Backwoods

photos of a forest magical-forest
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The Right Thing

It is amazing that growing your own food, buying local and seasonal, and trying to consume less is such a revolutionary act; but it is. Being self-sufficient helps us realize the difference between right and wrong. Self-sufficiency is, in fact, the realization of what is right. Being self-sufficient is the right thing to do because it is a good in itself. I am new to this realization of the need to be self-sufficient, and the most disconcerting thing about realizing this need is two-fold: first, how could I not have realized it before, and secondly being self-sufficient is very difficult in today’s society.

It is an interesting experience to realize that you have been living your life with your proverbial eyes closed for most of your life. The experience is un-nerving yet it is motivating; it motivates you to either make excuses or do what is right. I’ve found that there are a number of ways that we can do what is right, but it takes work.

These days I am reminded of doing what is right in some peculiar ways. I am reminded when I look out my window at the green lawn that surrounds my house: I need to replace it with a more suitable and sustainable landscape. I am reminded when I am weeding the garden or planting food. I am reminded when I am at the grocery store (the failure dome as I now call it) making choices about the food I will buy. Of course, I am reminded of it every time I read the news and often when I talk to friends.

Doing the right thing is not really a choice that we have. We can no longer choose to support the corporate food industry and call it an ethical decision: it is not. That being said, doing the right thing is not easy. We can no longer call ourselves independent simply because we make a good living: we are not. Being independent is not as easy as making a lot of money. We know a right thing when we come across it, and in fact, there is only one thing easy about the right thing: we know what it is. Being self-sufficient is the right thing because being self-sufficient forces us to realize that we are not separate from the world we live in, but a part of that world.

It truly is an amazing experience when we realize our moral beliefs in an objective way. And, as strange as it may seem, being self-sufficient is the way to realize the difference between right and wrong. Being self-sufficient is not right because it allows us to live in a sustainable way, or protects us from Armageddon, or prepares us for the end of society. Being self-sufficient is right because it is good. It is good to live honestly, independently, considerately, and responsibly. Doing the right thing because we can choose to do so is the greatest human capacity. Doing what is right may be difficult, but it is always the most moral choice.

The Path Least Taken

In his essay, A Native Hill, Wendell Berry writes of his forefathers in Kentucky who find a worn path used by the American Indians in the area for eons before the Europeans landed in the Americas. He writes, “A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place. It is a sort of ritual of familiarity. As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape. It is not destructive.” (pg. 12, Common Places). His story continues with his forefathers cutting down whole trees for fire while constructing a road over the ageless path through the woods. Why, he asks.

“Roads”, Wendell writes, “on the other hand, even the most primitive road, embodies a resistance against the landscape. Its reason is not simply the necessity for movement, but haste” (pg. 12, Common Places). When our paths become roads we have often paved over that which is most important to our selves, and often to others: time. We do not live our lives on the roads that we follow, but rather we rush through them not taking time to smell not the roses, but the life that we live. In fact, such a life is not a life lived; it is a life of avoidance through haste.

Why pave over a well-worn path with cement and oil? Why pass the landscape with the windows rolled up or cut down whole trees for a fire that could easily be made with some dead limbs? At some point in time we must address what it is that motivates us; we must address our reason for living, for following the path that we are on or constructing a road over a well-worn habit. If we say “my children”, then we are cheating those very children that we love by giving them nothing to look up to, no path to follow. If we say “my wife” or “my husband” we are cheating them of shared experiences and conversation about the paths that we are on. We will spend our life avoiding the very thing we are searching for. I believe that we owe those we travel with something to talk about, and we owe the path that we are on our respect.

And so, by paving over the very thing that we search all of our lives for we lose the very thing that gives us what we are searching for: that path through the woods that has been pounded with the past, and meanders through unknown woods and forests becomes a black streak through a wilderness that it is alien to. I would suggest that we pull up the concrete and wire, the asphalt and rock that we have so hurriedly laid. I would suggest that we look for that path through the woods that we have often forgotten about. I suggest that we take the time to take the path least taken. Because, what we do today will be the gift or the errors that become the features of our lives.*

*My people’s errors have become the features of my country. (Berry, pg. 15)

The Freedom to Do

So much of our lives today seem to be about talking and listening, about feeling and being concerned with other’s feelings. We waste our precious time talking about nothing and listening to others talk about nothing; we watch the minutes tick by as we smile blithely so as to not hurt one another’s feelings. We cannot offend anyone, and yet when we are offended, we are silent. Most of modern life is spent watching the world through a window or on a screen and talking about how nice it would be to be able to do. However, we do nothing.

It is not that we are not capable, we are. It is not that we do not have the desires, we do. It is that we are told that we cannot do this or that, that it is out of the ordinary to do this or that; we are told that people do not, and so we swallow the urge to be free, to actually do something. We live in our suburban homes, our apartments, and condos and call fear common sense and comfort our goal. We define honest work as labor, and laziness progress. We actually live two virtual lives: one on the computer and one in our head: the two often intermingle and become symbiotic. But still, this will not do.

But we can do; we do not have to shun freedom and happiness for the illusion of those things that we hold so dear. We can learn; we can learn as long as we do and as long as we are alive. All we need to enable action is decision; not emotion or discussion of possibilities, which are endless. Thinking is doing, and thinking is difficult; it is the price for freedom and happiness, but only as long as it leads to action. Thinking is practical when put into practice and is directly related to our bodies, which are literally aching to move, to do something.

While it is not true that we create our own realities, it is true that we can mold the reality in which we live. In order to mold our reality we must make the decision to do so, and in actually doing we become free. In becoming free we begin to pay for our education through the hardships of physical and mental aches and pains. These are the signs of change, sometimes of age, sometimes of inactivity and sloth. But we can even learn from these ubiquitous evils if we do something about them.

There is no shortcut to doing, no easy conduit, no pain-free path. The cost is the inevitable change that reality is: we must face our fears and quit making excuses. How we feel is no matter; we must act. The reality of doing is that others will feel the pain of their inaction, but we cannot take into account how doing makes others feel. The certainty of action is that others will talk, gossip, natter and blather, but this does not matter. In his great book of doing, Walden on Wheels, Ken Ilgunas writes, “freedom [is] simply being able to entertain the prospect of changing your circumstances.” Ilgunas was an indebt college student that decided to do something about it: after paying off his $35,000 debt by doing hard labor in Alaska, he lived in a van while attending Duke in order to stay out of debt.

We all have the dreams of having the freedom to do just that: get out of debt, stay out of debt, and live life in a way that would give us actually happiness. Yet so few of us do. We are slaves to our own fear and comfort, but even more so to the fears and expectations of others. James Joyce writes, “When the soul of a man is born, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.” Those nets hold us back, but sadly often we freely entangle ourselves in their snare. As Ilgunas reminds us, “We need so little to be happy. Happiness does not come from things. Happiness comes from a full and exciting life.” We have the freedom to do just that; if we would only do something about it.

The Armchair Philosopher

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