organic

Simplify Your Life; Complicate Your Philosophy

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Wendell Berry is one of those writers that have a talent for pointing out the obvious when the obvious seems so well-hidden. In his essay “Faustian Economics” he writes, “All are entitle to pursue without limit whatever they conceive as desirable-a license that classifies the most exalted Christian capitalist with the lowliest pornographer.” (pg. 43, What Matters?) This “doctrine” as he calls it is a necessary implication of the idea of a limitless economy.

The “family farm”, the concept that Berry is defending and the goal that I am trying to achieve seems like a simple and straightforward goal…but it is not. The implications of living in such a way as to be independent are many. First, I had to understand what it is that I am trying to be independent from. Secondly, I had to address and accept the limitations of the family farm (cottage farm, hobby farm…pick your term). And lastly, I had to address the cost of giving up on the Faustian idea of economics.

There are quite a few people with similar ideas of living and many of those people have to come to terms with these ideas, including: what is wrong with accepting modern society. Berry puts it forthright! “…Shifting the cost of depletion and pollution from the producer to the general public, the future, and other species…” (Forward, What Matters?) I’m not sure that there are those that can live honestly with these consequences, but I am finding out that I am not one of them.

Like any idea, the idea of a family farm ironically begins larger than life. The would-be farmer envisions endless, healthy fields and forests with a clean running, self-fed stream with no dependence upon modern conveniences. This thought is cut short when one remembers a necessity for most of us: toilet paper. This simple idea reminds us of the difficulties that are involved in going “off grid”, or even trying to live responsibly. Money is a necessary evil on this planet, given that we desire a quality of life that can be measured by any modern means. However, it is important to remember that money is not really the root of all evil, but simply the vehicle in which we travel to find it.

So what are our options with such dreams as independent living and eating responsibly? Berry again drives home what ought to be obvious to any thinking man. The agrarian economic policies would be in order of priority: 1) Nature, 2) Economies of land use, 3) Manufacturing, and 4) Consumer economies (pg. 3, What Matters?). I’ve never thought of my dream with regard to such priorities, but seeing them in writing drives home the ultimate goal: I want to reorganize my priorities.

I would recommend to anyone considering revitalizing their commitment to true, independent living to also re-visit the priorities by which they live by. I think that they will find that to simplify their life, they must first complicate their philosophy.

The Right Thing

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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.

 

Garden Variety Philosophy       

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I’m relatively new to gardening, and like most people the idea of gardening conjures up numerous images. First of course is the image of an overflowing abundance of plants popping with vegetables, fruits and flowers. Secondly, tools come to mind: the shovel, the rake, the hoe, the tiller. And perhaps the shape and color of the garden: should it be square, circular, and what about the soil? What is humus? Gardeners such as myself probably spend hours contemplating odd things such as these and the seeds…the seeds. The spacing of the seeds seems to be all-important according to some books, and in others it is the soil that the seeds are planted in; raised beds, rows, grouping: the list goes on. Both the questions and the answers seem endless, but all I want to do is to plant a garden.

One of the activities of gardening that I simply do not like is the pulling up of seedlings that are un-needed, or deemed lesser. Somehow it seems that I am killing an innocent, but gardening is like that. Gardening seems like an innocent endeavor, but the details prove it to be otherwise. To be a gardener, one must be ruthless in a sense. But this ruthlessness seems out of place in an activity that seems so peaceful. To be a gardener one must be both a mother and a warlord.

I look at the garden in the winter, covered in leaves, mulch and manure with its light brown, dusky color and imagine its future. Then I remember the aphids and the beetles that I fought valiantly with the year before, losing battles while hoping to win the war. I like to think of the garden as a way of giving, of helping the world, and the earth itself; planting and eating my own food. But, I also demand of the soil to produce and tear at the earth with the tools of the trade leaving it brown and uncovered, only to cover it again with remnants of what I previously took from it.

Then Spring comes and a renewed belief that what I do is good. Watching the seeds germinate under the plant light, the warming mat keeping the tomatoes and peppers warm on cool nights. The plans are laid and the seeds bought, I feel the heavy load of work to come which is the love and loathing of gardening. Such a simple task gardening and one that is directly related to being human. The garden represents change and consistency, husbandry and freedom.

And so the garden is a dichotomy of terms and ideas. But there is an underlying foundation to all gardens and this has much to do with why we garden. People garden for different reasons, but somehow those different reasons are more similar than not: curiosity, the desire for independence, love of nature. One is not a gardener for long if one is not curious about the plants, the earth that they are planted in, and the correlations between all life including the garden itself. Most of us speak of our independence, but until you can feed yourself, your independence is an illusion. Also, while gardening seems to be a process that brings order to an otherwise un-orderly natural environment, gardening puts us in touch with that very nature: we get our hands dirty and learn what our precious plants need in order to give us what we desire.

There is so much in a garden, philosophically, physically, and psychologically. A garden can be conceptual, representing a form of beauty or utility; maybe both. Gardening is most definitely a physical thing that demands physical work. And a garden demands of the garden a certain presence of mind and a drive to perhaps complicate your life. A garden can also be poetic with running rhymes strewn throughout with symbols of pleasure.

I think that in the end what truly defines a gardener is the reason that we each do it. A garden symbolizes what we want from life and our willingness to work to get it. But in the end, to garden is to realize that we are part of the nature that unfortunately we have spent much time and energy alienated ourselves from. The reason, I believe, that we garden is that it gives us a sense of belonging to a world that is far greater than ourselves. Just like our civilizations and societies, a garden gives us the illusion of control. But, just like the plants in the garden, we grow, live and we die. The garden reminds us that that is life, and that we are simply part of that thing that we so often take for granted, all started from a seed and some soil.

The Revolution of Food

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The word revolution conjures up scenes of violence and mayhem, but as history has shown us violent and political revolution often leads societies backwards towards the historical reasons for the revolution rather than forwards towards a better, more progressive approach to the original problem.  The French revolted, and the original problems of the time still exist today.  In America much is the same after the American Revolution.  While the ruling class is not longer the British, oligarchy still reigns over this country.  This oligarchical control is not governmental, however, but corporate.

 

Perhaps it is the nature of revolutionary acts to be cyclical?  Perhaps it is the nature of human beings that we must make the necessary mistakes, take the necessary shortcuts in order to learn that mistakes only count if we actually do learn from them, or that shortcuts are illusionary?  But we must learn from them, and understand that shortcuts are only as good as our reasons for taking them.  If revolution in all its forms is cyclical, then the ethical perspective relies upon the intention that instigates the revolution in the first place rather than the consequences of the acts themselves.

 

It is typically the intention of military revolutions to overthrow a government and the implication of that act is for the revolutionaries to become the governing body.  The intention, it can be said, is to govern and thus the cycle is complete.  The corporate food industry claims that its’ intention is to feed the world, because (it claims) more traditional methods fail to do so.  It has “overthrown” traditional methods and thus the cycle is complete.  However, like the military revolutionaries that become dictators, the industrial food complex has become the very problem that is proposed to solve because it has not acted honestly and with the right intentions.   Revolution fails if the intentions are not honest, and are not honestly come by.

 

Consider the reasons behind the corporate food revolution of the 40’s and 50’s: surplus chemicals from the Second World War; the surplus of corn because of technological advances, and the need for the government to create jobs, summed up in the Nixon administration by Earl Butz and his constituents.  Food ceased to be a human necessity and became an economic opportunity.

 

There is Truth in food and it must be the intention of those that revolt to turn from the shortcuts and mistakes made in the name of the almighty dollar and define themselves and their actions by the natural limitations that exist.  The comfort of Supermarket shopping and packaged goods and the ease of “just add water; makes it own sauce” mentalities must change and will change.  The question is how?  Will these changes come at our intentional beckoning or will they come in the form of catastrophic damages as a result of fuzzy thinking, lazy attitudes, greed and avarice?

 

The present food revolution leads us towards a place that we have visited before: the agrarian lifestyle, but we can only hope that unlike the military and political revolutions, we are the prodigal sons realizing our mistakes and hopefully learning from the corporate shortcuts that we have chosen to follow.  The food revolution is ironically progressive, ironic because it forces us to realize that the sustainable lifestyles lead to greater happiness because they are natural, not in lieu of being natural.  We must revolt, but we must do so quietly, concertedly and with the right intention.  But, most of all we must do so honestly.

Grow Like a Tree, Not a Fire

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There seems to be much anger in our society today.  It is prevalent on the streets and highways and in the stores where we shop.  Sometimes it is outright and sometimes a bit more subtle, but ubiquitous in the end.  This anger, I believe, is a result of the slow realization that we are not who we want to be, but who we have been told to be.  We have found that there are no shortcuts to being who we want to be, but in realizing this we also realize that we have taken one.

Barreling towards more ease, more consumption, more and more, and more… and calling it progress is the justification that our societies continue to use to steal, destroy and decimate other countries, other people, but most of all the land itself, the places that we live.  We call economic progress freedom, and we call luxuries the necessity of that progress.  Many of us pride ourselves on being independent, but in the back of our minds we know there really is no such thing.  Religions preach to us that we are special, but we are not.  Our governments tell us that there are political answers, but these are lies.  We tell ourselves that “it’s not as bad as all that…” but it is.  We have been sold down the river, and continue to sell ourselves as so much product. As the present, living societies we have a choice: to buy back that which our forefathers and ourselves have sold for cold hard cash, or perish.

Wendell Berry writes: It is foolish to assume that we will save ourselves from any fate that we have made possible simply because we have the conceit to call ourselves homo sapiens.” (Common Places)  It is that conceit that has taken what actually does make us special: the ability to think.  We have become proud of our ignorance.  Rather than think we react, we demand, we press and desire.  We cannot continue in this fashion!  Our conceit leads us to believe that we can continue to take without giving back.  Our conceit leads us to believe that we have a right, a duty, to reap benefits economically at the cost of environmental degradation.

What did our forefathers sell in order to reap economic benefits?  What was the priceless thing they sold for the pittance they received?  It was an idea.  They sold the idea that abundance was not endless; and that we belonged to a place, rather than being the owner of a place.  The ideas that they sold, however, are facts and they sold them for wishful thinking and on faith.  For a handful of dollar bills we continue to sell our future to a few that still remain in the trance of greed and the belief in endless abundance and rights as defined by economy rather than responsibility.  With the lie that abundance is endless, we have been taught that to work with nature is to be a slave and to use nature is to master it.  They were wrong, and we are wrong for continually accepting their errors.

The callouses on your hands and the sweat under your hat that are gifts from working with nature are signs that you are free, not the ability to buy and sell nature as nothing more than a commodity.  The knowledge that you are responsibly effective even at the cost of industrial efficiency is a sign that you are free: the craftsman rather than the conveyor belt.  The realization that the “smell of money” is the same as rotting flesh, but the smell of fresh grass and pasture is the smell of life.  These things and that desire is not need are the starts of actualizing freedom.  The freedom to fail, and doing so honestly is the freedom to learn and that is the start of progress, and eventual freedom.

I believe that we are angry because we have been sold a bill of goods that are worthless, that make life worthless, that make us worthless.  We have been sold the rotten idea that the land and the animals around us are there to be used and diminished at our will.  We are angry because as we do, we have realized that we continue to wilfully diminish ourselves.  We have been sold the shiny penny of an idea that ease is freedom, but it is not: it is entrapment.  We have been sold that our sole motive in life is to make our lives easier, but ease is usury that must be paid back with the difficulty that is reality.  We must realize that in laying down the cash for things that we have no right to buy or to sell is to redefine who we are, who we become, but not who we want to be.  We will die by credit, but live by work.  We will die in ignorance or learn to respect the very thing that gives us life  In order to quell the anger that will eventually subsume us, “We must learn to grow like a tree, not like a fire.” (Common Places)